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Fairy Tale Exploration Worksheet
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Fairy Tale Exploration Worksheet
Read the original fairy tale below, then explore how its characters, plot and language create meaning. Use evidence from the story in your answers.
Long ago, beyond the ranges where the gum trees met the clouds, a glass mountain stood in a valley. Its smooth sides reflected the sky, and no one had ever reached its summit.
Mara, the youngest daughter of a sheep farmer, heard a bell ringing from the mountain one winter night. At dawn she found a silver fox waiting beside her gate. A thin red thread was tied around its paw.
“Someone is trapped above the clouds,” said the fox. “The mountain will let you climb only if you carry no weapon and take nothing for yourself.”
Mara set off with a coil of rope and a small loaf of bread. The climb was steep. Twice she slipped, and twice she stopped to help the fox, whose paw hurt more with every step. At last they reached a ledge where a tiny bird was tangled in the red thread. Mara freed it and shared her bread with the fox.
The bell rang again. A path appeared in the glass, winding to the summit. There, a storm-bird with a broken wing lay beside a bronze bell. Mara could have taken the bell, which shone like the sun, but instead she used her rope to bind the bird’s wing. The bird rose into the air and beat its wings once. The storm clouds parted.
The mountain turned soft as wet sand. Mara, the fox and the bird walked down safely. The fox’s red thread fell away, and it became a shepherd who had been lost in the storm for many years. The bell remained on the summit, ringing whenever someone below needed help.
Mara returned home with no treasure, but with a story the valley remembered: courage is not always about winning a fight; sometimes it is choosing to care.
Explore the Story
Answer in complete sentences where appropriate. Support interpretations with details from the passage.
1.What does Mara hear on the winter night, and what does she discover at her gate the next morning?
2.The mountain sets a condition for climbing. What is it, and how does Mara’s behaviour show that she accepts it?
3.Put these events in the order they happen by numbering them 1–4: Mara helps the storm-bird; the path appears; Mara finds the fox; Mara frees the tiny bird.
4.Which statement best describes Mara’s main quality?
- She is curious but careless.
- She is compassionate and courageous.
- She is determined to become famous.
- She is suspicious of everyone she meets.
5.The story says the mountain “turned soft as wet sand”. What effect does this detail have at the end of the story?
6.True or false: Mara takes the bronze bell as a reward. Give one detail that supports your answer.
TrueFalse
7.Find one fairy-tale feature in the passage and explain how it helps make the story feel like a fairy tale.
8.What might the red thread symbolise? Use at least one clue from the story to support your interpretation.
9.Complete the idea with evidence: “The story challenges the idea that a hero must be a fighter because…”
10.Write a new final sentence for the story that keeps its message about courage and care. Make it sound like a fairy-tale ending.
3 printable pages
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