“ But at last it grew so strong, that it nearly always made the children cry. And when it had grown so strong the grown-up people began to play with it, and they helped the old woman in this way, in making the bear grow stronger. But after a time not even grown men dared play with it, so great was its strength, and then they said to one another:
“Let us take it with us when we go out hunting. It may help us to find seal.”
And so one day in the dawn, they came to the old woman’s window and cried:
“Little bear, come and earn a share of our catch; come out hunting with us, bear.” ”

“ And it was this which Tugto and his wife first saw; the half of a black seal’s meat and half of its blubber cut across. And when she came in, she said:
“It is my errand now to ask if one of you can magic away the ice.”
When these words were heard, Tugto said to his wife:
“In this time of hunger we cannot send away meat that is given. You must magic away the ice.” ”

“ Once in the days of our forefathers, a man went out along the coasts, making search for his son. For that son had gone out in his kayak and had not returned.
One day he saw a giant beside a great glacier, and rowed up to him then. When he had entered the house, the giant drew forth a drum, a beautiful drum with a skin that had been taken from the belly of a man. Now the giant was about to give him this drum, but at the same time he felt such a violent desire to eat him up, that he trembled all over. ”

“ The Insects that Wooed a Wifeless Man
There was once a wifeless man.
Yes, that is the way a story always begins.
And it was his custom to run down to the girls whenever he saw them out playing. And the young girls always ran away from him into their houses.
And when the time of great hunting set in, and the kayak men lived in plenty, it always happened that he shamefully overslept himself every time he had made up his mind to go out hunting. He did not wake until the sun had gone down, and the hunters began to come in with their catch in tow. ”

“ Then at last the stranger came out, and he took that seal by the flipper with one hand, and carried it up that way.
“What strength, what strength! The man is a giant indeed,” cried the little folk. And they fell to work cutting up the seal, but to them it seemed as if they were cutting up a huge walrus, so hard did they find it to cut up that little seal.
And people came hurrying down from the houses up above, and all wished to share. The women of the house then shared out that seal. Each of the guests was given a little breastbone and no more, but this to them was a very great piece of meat. ”

“ Then said Qasiagssaq:
“How foolish I was not to take so much as a little blubber with me. Over in our village, seals are daily thrown away. You must come back with me to our place.”
Next morning they set off together. When they reached the place, Qasiagssaq hurried up with the harpoon line in his hand, before his wife’s mother had landed. And all she saw was that there was much carrion of ravens on Qasiagssaq’s rubbish heap. Suddenly Qasiagssaq cried out:
“Ah! One of them has got away again!”
He had caught a raven in his snare. ”

“ And this time they heard the whistle, and the man nudged his wife and said:
“You, Puagssuaq, you can talk with the spirits. Take counsel with them now.”
When he had said this, the wifeless man whistled again. And at this whistling, the man looked at his wife again and said earnestly:
“Listen! It sounds as if that might be the voice of a shore-dweller; one who catches miserable fish.”
And now the wifeless man saw that the old one’s wife was letting down her hair. And this was because she was now about to ask counsel of the spirits. ”

“ And she began to ask all the unmarried women to come and visit her. And because of this there came one day a young woman who was not very beautiful. And this one she liked very much, for that she was a clever eater, and having regard to this, she chose her out as the one her son should marry. One day she said to her son:
“That woman is the one you must have.”
And her son obeyed her, as was his custom.
Every day after their marriage, the strongest man in Amerdloq called in at the window:
“Qujâvârssuk! Let us see which of us can first get a bladder float for hunting the whale.” ”

“ Then the Moon Man bade him lie down at full length on his back, with a black sealskin under, which he spread on the floor. This the Obstinate One did, and then the Moon Man fetched his heart from the woman and stuffed it in again.
And while he was there, the Moon Man took up one of the stones from the floor, and let him look down on to the earth. And there he saw his wife sitting on the bench, plaiting sinews for thread, and this although she was in mourning. A thick smoke rose from her body; the smoke of her evil thoughts. ”

“ When Pâtussorssuaq’s wife saw this, she snatched up her needle and sewing ring, and fled away, following the shadow of the tent, over the hills to the place where her parents lived. She had not even time to put on her skin stockings, and therefore her feet grew sore with treading the hills. On her way up inland she saw people running about with their hoods loose on their heads, as is the manner of the inland folk, but she had no dealings with them, for they fled away. ”

“ Qujâvârssuk made no answer, as was his custom, but the old man said to him:
“We use only speckled skin for whales. And they are now at this time in the mouth of the river.”
After this, they went to rest.
Qujâvârssuk slept, and awoke, and got up, and went away to the north. And when he had gone a little way to the north, he came to the mouth of a small fjord. He looked round and saw a speckled seal that had come up to breathe. When it went down again, he rowed up on the landward side of it, and fixed the head and line to his harpoon. ”

“ Kumagdlak had made himself arrows, and feathered them with birds’ feathers. He was a great wizard, and by breathing with his own breath upon those arrows he could give them life, and cause them to fly towards his enemies and kill them. And when he himself stood unprotected before the weapons of his enemies, he would grasp the thong of the pouch in which his mother had carried him as a child, and strike out with it, and then all arrows aimed at him would fly wide of their mark. ”

“ Then Qasiagssaq’s wife said as usual:
“Now you have lied again. When you do such things, one cannot but feel shame for you.”
“Hrrrr!” said Qasiagssaq, to frighten her, and went on as if nothing had happened.
Now it is said that Qasiagssaq’s wife Qigdlugsuk had a mother who lived in another village, and had a son whose name was Ernilik. One day Qasiagssaq set out to visit them. He came to their place, and when he entered into the house, it was quite dark, because they had no blubber for their lamp, and the little child was crying, because it had nothing to eat. ”

“ When the girls grew up, and began to understand things, they desired to run away on account of their father’s scolding. And at last they set out, taking with them only a little dogskin, and a piece of boot skin, and a fire stone. They went up into a high mountain to build themselves a house there.
Their father and mother made search for them in vain, for the girls kept hiding themselves; they had grown to be true mountain dwellers, keeping far from the places of men. Only the reindeer hunters saw them now and again, but the girls always refused to go back to their kin. ”

“ One day the old one said to Qujâvârssuk:
“You are named after a man who died of hunger at Amerdloq.”
It is told of the people of Amerdloq that they catch nothing but turbot.
And Qujâvârssuk went to Amerdloq and lived there with an old man, and while he lived there, he made always the same catch as was his custom. At last the people of Amerdloq began to say to one another:
“This must be the first time there have been so many black seal here in our country; every time he goes hunting he catches two seal.” ”

“ The legend of the Men who travelled round the World is based on a conception of the world as round. There is the tradition of a deluge, but here supported by geological evidence which is appreciated by the natives themselves: i.e. the finding of mussel shells on the hills far inland. The principle of the tides is recognized in what is otherwise a fairy tale; “There will be no more ebb-tide or flood if you strangle me,” says the Moon Man to the Obstinate One.
The constellation of the Great Bear is explained in one story, the origin of Venus in another. ”

“ Eskimo Folk-Tales The Two Friends Who Set Off to Travel Round the World
Once there were two men who desired to travel round the world, that they might tell others what was the manner of it.
This was in the days when men were still many on the earth, and there were people in all the lands. Now we grow fewer and fewer. Evil and sickness have come upon men. See how I, who tell this story, drag my life along, unable to stand upon my feet.
The two men who were setting out had each newly taken a wife, and had as yet no children. ”

“ And one day a black cloud came up in the south. Later in the evening, there was a mighty noise of the wind, and the storm did not abate until it was growing light in the morning. When it was quite light, and the people came out, the sea was open and blue. A great number of birds were flying above the water, and there were hosts of black seal everywhere. The kayaks were made ready at once, and when they began to make them ready, Tugto’s wife said:
“No one must hunt them yet; until five days are gone no one may hunt them.” ”

“ And it is from this giant dog that the inland-dwellers got their great fear of all dogs. It would always appear suddenly at the window, and drag them out. But it was a good thing that something happened to frighten the inland-dwellers, for they had themselves an evil custom of carrying off lonely folk, especially women, when they had lost their way in the fog. ”

“ Inside the house, she saw an old woman lying face downwards on the bedplace. And as soon as she had come in, the old woman began to abuse her. And she was about to answer those bad words, when the old woman sprang out on to the floor to fight with her. And now they two fought furiously [30] together. They fought for a long time, and little by little the old woman grew tired. And when she was so tired that she could not get up, the other saw that her hair hung loose and was full of dirt. And now Tugto’s wife began cleaning her as well as she could. ”

“ The ending may occasionally point a sort of moral, as in the case of Ukaleq, who after having escaped from a Magic Bear, “never went out hunting bear again.” But the usual form is either a sort of equivalent to “lived happily ever after,” or a frank and direct intimation: “Here ends this story,” or “That is all I know of so-and-so.” Some such hint is not infrequently necessary, since the “end” of a story often leaves considerable scope for further development. ”

“ But one day the dog smelt out the stranger, and came down from the hills, and then the man was forced to hide away the stranger and his kayak in a far place, lest the dog should tear them in pieces, for it was very fierce.
Now because the dog was so big and fierce, the man had many enemies. And once a stranger came driving in a sledge with three dogs as big as bears, to kill the giant dog. ”

“ A bird once wished to marry a woman. He got himself a fine sealskin coat, and having weak eyes, made spectacles out of a walrus tusk, for he was greatly set upon looking as nice as possible. Then he set off, in the shape of a man, and coming to a village, took a wife, and brought her home.
Now he began to go out catching fish, which he called seal, and brought home to his wife. ”

“ A long, long time ago, when the earth was to be made, it fell down from the sky. Earth, hills and stones, all fell down from the sky, and thus the earth was made.
And then, when the earth was made, came men. ”

“ But these men who did not know how to die, they grew to be too many, and crowded the earth. And then there came a mighty flood from the sea. Many were drowned, and men grew fewer. We can still see marks of that great flood, on the high hill-tops, where mussel shells may often be found. ”

“ The aim of the Eskimo story-teller is to pass the time during the long hours of darkness; if he can send his hearers to sleep, he achieves a triumph. Not infrequently a story-teller will introduce his chef-d’œuvre with the proud declaration that “no one has ever heard this story to the end.” The telling of the story thus becomes a kind of contest between his power of sustained invention and detailed embroidery on the one hand and his hearers’ power of endurance on the other. ”

“ In virtue of which very distant connection he proceeds to magic away the ice.
There is a general tendency towards anthropomorphic conception of supernatural beings. The Moon Man has his stock of harpoons like any mortal hunter; the Mountain Spirit has a wife and children. The life and domestic arrangements of “spirits” are mostly represented as very similar to those with which the story-teller and his hearers are familiar, much as we find, in early Italian paintings, Scriptural personages represented in the costume and environment of the artist’s own place and period. ”

“ But little Kâgssagssuk, who, young as he was, had already some helping spirits, made that little piece of meat to be a big piece, just as the dead can do, and ate as much as he could, and when he could eat no more, there was still so much left that he could hardly drag it away to hide it. ”

“ For when men die, they go up into the sky and become brightly shining things there. [18]
[Contents] Nukúnguasik, Who Escaped from the Tupilak1
Nukúnguasik, it is said, had land in a place with many brothers. When the brothers made a catch, they gave him meat for the pot; he himself had no wife.
One day he rowed northward in his kayak, and suddenly he took it into his head to row over to a big island which he had never visited before, and now wished to see. He landed, and went up to look at the land, and it was very beautiful there. ”

“ When they awoke next morning, the sea was quite dark ahead, and all the ice had gone. But when the villagers came out, she said to them:
“Do not kill more than one; if any of you should kill two, he will never kill again.”
And furthermore she said:
“If any of you should catch a young fjord seal with a bare patch on its back, you must give it to me to make breeches.” ”