S3 Exercise 2: The Neverending Story

The Neverending Story

By Michael Ende

The beasts in the Howling Forest were safe in their caves, nests and burrows.

It was midnight, the storm wind was whistling through the tops of the great ancient trees. The towering trunks creaked and groaned. Suddenly a faint light came zigzagging through the woods, stopped here and there, trembling fitfully, flew up into the air, rested on a branch, and a moment later hurried on. It was a glittering sphere about the size of a child’s ball; it moved in long leaps, touched the ground now and then, bounded up again.

But it wasn’t a ball.

It was a will-o’-the-wisp. It had lost its way. And that’s something quite unusual even in Fantastica, because ordinarily will-o’-the-wisps make others lose their way.

Inside this ball of light there was a small, exceedingly active figure, which ran and jumped with all its might. It was neither male nor female, for such distinctions don’t exist among will-o’-the-wisps. In its right hand it carried a tiny white flag, which glittered behind it. This meant it was either a messenger or a flag-of-truce bearer.

You’d think it would have bumped into a tree, leaping like that in the darkness, but there was no danger of that, for will-o’-the-wisps are incredibly nimble and can change directions in the middle of a leap. That explains the zigzagging but in a general sort of way it moved in a definite direction.

Up ahead it saw a clearing in the woods, and there in the light of a campfire sat three figures of different sizes and shapes. A giant, who looked as if the whole of him were made of gray stone, lay stretched out on his belly. He was almost ten feet long. Propped up on one elbow, he was looking into the fire. In his weather-beaten stone face, which seemed strangely small in comparison with his powerful shoulders, his teeth stood out like a row of steel chisels. The will-o’-the wisp recognised him as belonging to the family of rock chewers. These were creatures who lived in a mountain range inconceivably far from Howling Forest-but they not only lived in the mountain range, they also lived on it, for little by little they were eating it up.

 Questions

1) What technique does the writer in paragraph 2 to describe the weather? Write down an example.

 2) Why do you think the writer uses this technique?

3) What technique does the writer use in the phrase “creaked and groaned”?

4) Look at paragraph 3. Why does the writer make this paragraph a single short sentences?

5) Write down the phrase the writer uses in paragraph 2 to show the faint light was moving unpredictably?

6) Why was the will-o’-the- wisp moving in all directions? (paragraph 4).

7) Paragraph 5. In your own words, describe, what was inside the ball of light and what it was doing?

8) Paragraph 7. In your own words, write down three physical facts about the giant.

9) What technique does the writer use in the same paragraph to describe the giant’s teeth? Write down the example.