NCERT Solutions Class 10 English (First Flight)
The NCERT Solutions in English Language for Class 10 English (First Flight) Poem – 10 The Tale of Custard the Dragon has been provided here to help the students in solving the questions from this exercise.
Poem – 10 (The Tale of Custard the Dragon)
Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little grey mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.
Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little grey mouse, she called him Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.
Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio daggers on his toes.
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.
Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Weeck! which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.
Belinda paled, and she cried Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.
But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm,
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.
The pirate gaped at Belinda’s dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets, but they didn’t hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.
Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim.
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pirate.
But presently up spoke little dog Mustard,
I’d have been twice as brave if I hadn’t been flustered.
And up spoke Ink and up spoke Blink,
We’d have been three times as brave, we think,
And Custard said, I quite agree
That everybody is braver than me.
Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little grey mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio little pet dragon.
Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.
– OGDEN NASH
Thinking about the Poem
1. Who are the characters in this poem? List them with their pet names.
Answer – The characters in this poem are Belinda, a little girl, and her pets: a little black kitten, a little grey mouse, a little yellow dog, a little pet dragon and a pirate.
| Characters | Pet name |
| Kitten | Ink |
| Mouse |
Blink |
| Dog | Mustard |
| Dragon |
Custard |
2. Why did Custard cry for a nice safe cage? Why is the dragon called “cowardly dragon”?
Answer – Custard cried for a nice safe cage because he was coward. He was called “cowardly dragon”. All other animals laughed at him for being so. He did not like that. So he cried for a nice safe cage.
3. “Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful…” Why?
Answer – Belinda tickled Custard because a pirate had come there. He had pistols in his hands. She tickled Custard to save her from the pirate.
4. The poet has employed many poetic devices in the poem. For example “Clashed his tail like iron in a dungeon” – the poetic device here is a simile. Can you, with your partner, list some more such poetic devices used in the poem?
Answer – In the poem, ‘The tale of Custard, the Dragon’, the poet has used a lot of poetic devices. Following are the devices used
1. Simile: mouth like a fireplace
2. Repetition: the repetitive use of the word ‘little’ in stanza 1.
5. Read stanza three again to know how the poet describes the appearance of the dragon.
Answer – Stanza three of the poem describes the physical side of the dragon. By stating his ‘big sharp teeth’, ‘spikes’ and ‘scales’, the poet makes him fearful.
6. Can you find out the rhyme scheme of two or three stanzas of the poem?
Answer – The rhyme scheme of the poem is ‘aabb’.
7. Writers use words to give us a picture or image without actually saying what they mean. Can you trace some images used in the poem?
Answer – Some images are in stanza third (physical image of Custard). In stanza eight we can almost see the picture of the pirate. In stanza ten, it is that of an ‘engine’. It is also of the fighting image of soldiers.
8. Do you find ‘The Tale of Custard the Dragon’ to be a serious or a light-hearted poem? Give reasons to support your answer.
Answer – It is a light-hearted poem. The animals have been treated as human beings. Then they pose before each other what they are not. When the danger comes, they run off. Again, when they come together, they pretend of their bravery.
9. This poem, in ballad form, tells a story. Have you come across any such modern song or lyric that tells a story? If you know one, tell it to the class. Collect such songs as a project.
Answer – I remember the poem ‘A legend of the Northland’, which was a long poem and told a legend/ story about a greedy woman who kept St. Peter hungry and was cursed by him to become a bird and struggle for meagre amount of food, the way she kept him waiting for smallest quantity of food when he was fainting out of hunger.
