Chapter 5 - A Legend of The Northland [Poem] I need mind map
Answers
The Northland is an area near the North Pole where days are short because the sun’s rays reach for very little time. Here, during the winter, the duration of the night is longer and days are shorter. The word ‘they’ in line 4 refers to the people who live in this region. Also, the poet says that the duration of nights is long and people can’t sleep them through. The poet wants to emphasize the fact that the nights are very long.
The region experiences severe cold conditions as it is a snowy area. Moreover, reindeers are the animals that live in the polar region, which the people use to pull their sleds. Also, the poet says that children look like polar bear cubs as they wear clothes made from the fur of the skin of the bear. Inline 1 of the 3rd para, ‘they’ refers to the elders and ‘them’ refers to the children. In addition, the elders tell a strange and interesting story about the young ones. However, the poet does not believe that the story is true, still, it gives an important message.
This ballad refers to the time when Saint Peter lives in the world and went around, giving spiritual lectures to the people like all saints do, and then one day an incident happened. While giving lectures, one day he reached the door of a cottage where a small woman was making cakes in the fireplace. Saint Peter was very hungry that day, as he hasn’t had a meal and was feeling weak. So, he approaches the women and asks for one cake out of the many baked by her.
The women were selfish and she did not give him a cake from the store. In its place, she makes a very small cake for Saint Peter. She does not want to share her things. However, when she places the cake for baking she thought that it’s too big to give away. The miser women then again started making a smaller cake. She did this three-time but didn’t give any cake to Saint Peter. She reason that when she ate them they felt small. But when she had to give them they felt too big to give to someone. And finally, she put all the cakes on her kitchen shelf and didn’t give any cake to the saint.
Saint Peter get angry and cursed her because he was very hungry and felt very weak. Saint said to her that you are selfish and did not deserve to live as a human being. He further adds that God has given her food, shelter, and fire to keep her warm but she became selfish and greedy. Hence the women became a bird who had to build their houses by boring into the wood and collect very little food by working the entire day.
When Saint Peter cursed her she became a bird and flew through the chimney. When she flew the bird has a red cap on her head dame as the women wear. Moreover, when people in the countryside and children see this kind of bird their elder tells them this story of a bird.