IMPORTANT: Comprehension questions will be in chronological order as you read through the story. Page numbers are approximate, and will vary with different editions of the book.
Section 1
Vocabulary
- drudgery: hard, menial, or dull work
- ebb: the movement of the tide to sea
- entreated: ask someone earnestly or anxiously to do something
- indulge: allow oneself to enjoy the pleasure of something
- prodigious: remarkably or impressively great in extent, size or degree
- tawdry: showy but cheap and of poor quality
Comprehension Questions
- In the Cellar, where the Folk reside, Corinna is queen of the world. (pg. 1)
- Corinna’s last act for the Folk of the Rhysbridge Foundling Home is to steal Matron’s breakfast sausage. (pg. 3)
- Corinna does not speak her anger because you must never give your anger away. (pg. 5)
- Lord Merton knows Corinna’s secret that she is a girl and that she always knows the time. (pg. 7/8)
- Every rhyme that comes to Corinna has a hole in it’s middle where the heartbeat should be. (pg. 9)
- Corinna lets Sir Edward and Lady Alicia assume that she had a proper apprenticeship in the Foundling Home, but in reality she had bribed some lads to teach her to read and write. (pg. 13)
- No-one, not even a Folk Keeper can see the Folk because they cannot bear the light. (pg. 15)
- There are no Sealfolk on the mainland. (pg. 25)
- A good Folk Keeper knows all about charms. (pg. 25)
- Corinna wants “…to know people’s secret passions” because then you have power over them if needed. (pg. 29)
- The Folk of Cliffsend draw terrific strength from their stony home. (pg. 30)
- Corinna is able to climb the tree when running from the Hill Hounds because it is growing in the shelter of a wall and is thin and stunted. (pg. 33)
- If Corinna had known to follow to follow the smell of baking bread she would have found the Cellar by herself as it was just outside the kitchens. (pg. 42)
- Corinna is most sorry that she doesn’t have time to go sailing with Finian. (pg. 44)
Section 2
Vocabulary
- futile: pointless, serving no useful purpose
- malice: to cause pain, injury or distress to another
- nimble: quick and light in movement, action or thought
- oust: drive out or expel someone from a position or place
- tether: to tie an animal with a rope or chain so as to restrict its movement
- wraith: a ghost or ghostlike image of someone
Comprehension Questions
- The Folk do not have hearts and do not care for kindness. (pg. 47)
- The first true thing that Corinna tells Lady Alicia is that she likes the rain. (pg. 49)
- Lady Rona is the deceased first wife of Lord Merton. (pg. 51)
- The only one to see Corinna slip off to the cellar with hundreds of pins stuck in her clothes is the mournful old dog Taffy. (pg. 53)
- According to Corina the Folk in the Northern Isles grow fierce during the Storms of the Equinox, which occur in the autumn and spring. (pg. 57)
- Corinna leaves her Folk bag in the Cellar because she doesn’t want to accidently lose the bag overboard while sailing with Finian. (pg. 58)
- Corinna shows Finian that she could coax the wind into the sails of the boat. (pg. 59)
- Corinna was given the name Stonewall by a matron at the foundling home because she was stubborn and wouldn’t boil the soiled linens. (pg. 60)
- The Lady Rona’s child is buried under the church eaves. (pg. 62
- While in the Cellar Corinna realizes that she is not protected against Finian knowing she is responsible for the dogs destroying Edward’s trophy skin. (pg. 69)
- Corinna should have known never to reveal any of her true convictions. (pg. 72)
- Old Francis disappears during the Storms of the Equinox. (pg. 73)
- The May Day garlands are scattered in a circle around the Manor to restrict the power of the Folk to the caverns. (pg. 74)
- Finian dresses up as a Cliffsend fisherman for the Masquerade Ball. (pg. 78)
Section 3
Vocabulary
- crescendo: a gradual increase in loudness in a piece of music
- implacable: unable to be placated
- languorous: the state or feeling, often plesant of tiredness or inertia
- lustrous: having shine
- obliged: legally or morally bound to an action or course of action
- tranquil: free from disturbance; calm
Comprehension Questions
- The Folk Keeper must always leap over the bonfire first. (pg. 82)
- Holding a brick of warm peat to your breast glows against the skin and gives a feeling of tranquility. (pg. 85)
- Corinna says that she will never marry. (pg. 86)
- When Corinna dives underwater to save Finian she is reborn; she no longer needs air, she can close her ears, and is weightless, which give her joy. (pg. 87/88)
- When another hand reaches for Coinna she sinks below the surface of the water because she was not ready to return to the world of laughter, tears and a past. (pg. 89/90)
- When Corinna finds her feet are sure and light up the cliff path it is as if she had memorized the cliff and knew all the crags. (pg. 92)
- Corinna believes Finian would laugh if he knew that the color of the hair inside her peat brick was red like his. (pg. 92)
- Corinna coaxes< Finian to go sailing with her the next day. (pg. 94)
- After Corinna drips her blood into the ocean the sea’s color turned dark, the waves arched with anger and a terrible storm began to brew. (pg. 97)
- After a wave smashes Corinna into the mast she realizes that the water around her ankles isn’t coming from the rain and crashing waves, but from a crack in the boats boards. (pg. 98)
- According to Corinna you cannot call the Seafold at low tide. (pg. 100)
- Everyone thinks breathing in is so important, but no-one thinks about the importance of breathing out. (pg. 104)
- Corinna’s mother goes mad and refuses to ever look at the sea when her husband Lord Merton burned her sealskin. (pg. 108)
- Sir Edward has hunted long enough to be able to tell when an animal is about to bolt. (pg. 109)
Section 4
Vocabulary
- complacent: showing smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements
- gauze: a thin translucent fabric of silk, linen, or cotton
- inexplicable: unable to be explained or accounted for
- inextricable: impossible to disentangle or separate
- linger: to stay in place longer than is necessary, typically because of a reluctance to leave
- savor: to taste and enjoy completely
Comprehension Questions
- The Folk did not frighten Corinna as much as she frightened herself. (pg. 125)
- When Corinna is alone she “can carve words from air and float them in a sea of rhyme.” She has the last word. (pg. 127)
- Once Corinna emerges from the Cellar she realizes at once that the Manor is empty. (pg. 130)
- Corinna is transformed from savage to servant with a bar of soap and some servant’s clothes borrowed from Mrs. Baines storeroom. Pge 132)
- While at the stonecutter’s tray Corinna lingers over a tiny crafted quartz rooster that has a swagger and strut. (pg. 134)
- Finian pulls Corinna away from the crowd and down an alley at the Harvest Fair. (pg. 135)
- When Finian first met Corinna he knew by the way she carried herself that she was no boy. (pg. 137)
- Finian says that Corinna could come back from the sea for the Folk, for him and to marry him. (pg. 140)
- The color of the strands of hair in Finian’s peat brick on Midsummer’s Eve was silver. (pg. 140)
- Finian and Lady Alicia have gone to Rhysbridge to testify before the courts that there is an heir with a greater claim than their to Marblehaugh Park. (pg. 148)
- Corinna could not confine herself to the land even for Finian whom she loved. (pg. 148)
- Taffy’s grave is marked by dozens of amber beads glowing in the cool autumn sun. (pg. 151)
- The direction of the Seal Rock is built into Corinna’s bones. (pg. 157)
- When Corinna’s Sealskin is peeling away from her she is thankful she has her words because she could tell her story. Pg. 159)