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Words That Allude to Myth is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on meanings that point back to a mythological character, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.4. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 23 of them with different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 8 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 23 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.

Words That Allude to Myth

RL.4.4

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Water Came Up (told by Nell)

I was the one who said it was nothing. The river had been over the path before. Twice that winter. Both times it went down by morning, so when Dad started moving the boxes upstairs I told him he was making a fuss. I went to bed. At two o'clock I woke because my slippers were floating. Everything after that is in pieces. Dad on the stairs with the cat. Water the colour of tea. The sound the fridge made when it went over. We sat on the landing until it got light. Nobody said anything about the boxes. That was worse than if they had.

  1. 1. "Water the colour of tea" — what does this comparison tell you?
  2. 2. "Everything after that is in pieces" — what does this really describe?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus was the finest craftsman in the world, and King Minos kept him prisoner because of it. He and his son Icarus were shut in a tower above the sea. Daedalus watched the gulls for a summer. Then he gathered feathers, laid them in rows from short to long, and bound them with wax and thread into two pairs of wings. "Fly in the middle," he told Icarus. "Too low and the sea spray soaks the feathers. Too high and the sun softens the wax." They rose from the tower together. For a while Icarus followed exactly. Then the boy found that he could climb. He forgot the tower, the sea, the warning. He went up, and up, until the wax ran and the feathers came away one at a time and the sky let go of him. Daedalus flew on alone. He never made anything again.

  1. 1. "The sky let go of him" — what does this really describe?
  2. 2. Somebody is described as "Icarian". From this myth, what would that mean?

LessonPrint · RL.4.4 · Set 8 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Words That Allude to Myth

Set 8. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. The floodwater was brown and murky like tea, not clear. 2. Her memory of the flood night, broken into pieces — Dad on the stairs, the fridge — rather than a sequence.
  2. 2.1. Icarus falling, described as though the sky had been holding him up. 2. Reaching too high and being destroyed by their own ambition.

More practice for RL.4.4

Work out what words mean here, including ones that point back to myths.

Teaching this next? Allusions and Figurative Meaning is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.4 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.