Page 113 - Lavender-B-5
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‘Will you hold your tongue,’ cried
the cat, ‘one word more, and I will
eat you too.’
‘All-gone’ was already on the poor
mouse’s lips; scarcely had she spoken
it before the cat sprang on her, seized
her, and swallowed her down. Verily,
that is the way of the world.
hold your tongue: to stop —Brothers Grimm
talking
verily: an old expression
meaning ‘truly’ or ‘indeed’
About the Authors
Brothers Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785−1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786−1859) collected German
folk tales and published them in a collection called Grimm’s Fairy Tales. There are about two hundred fairy tales
in the collection and some of the famous fairy tales in the collection are ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Frog Prince’, ‘Hansel and
Gretel’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Snow White’. ‘Cat and Mouse in
Partnership’ is a tale from that collection.
Time to answer
A. Who said these statements?
1. ‘But we must make a provision for winter, or else we shall suffer
from hunger.’
2. ‘Well, here you are again.’
3. ‘All went off well.’
4. ‘What does that matter.’
5. ‘And what was the child christened?’
6. ‘All good things go in threes.’
B. Answer these questions.
1. What made the mouse agree to live and keep house together with the cat?
2. Why did the cat and the mouse buy fat and store it in the church?
3. What was the cat’s excuse for leaving the house and going to the church to eat the fat?
4. Describe how the cat duped the mouse three times.
5. When did the mouse realise that the cat had lied to her and devoured the fat all by
herself?
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