thing again to his wife, and a second time told her to go to the old one.
They slept, and awakened, and the strong man went out hunting as was his wont. Then his wife waited only until the old one had gone out, and as soon as he was gone, she put on her finest clothes and followed after. When she came in sight of the water, the old one was sitting there in his boat as on the other days, and fishing. Now the old one turned his head and saw her, and he could see that she was even more finely dressed than on the day before. And now a great desire of her came over him, and he made up his mind to row in to where she was. He came in to the land, and stepped out of his kayak and went up to her. And now he went to her this time.
Then he rowed out again, but he caught scarcely any fish that day.
When only a little time had gone, the strong man came rowing out to him and said:
“Now perhaps you have again failed to go to my wife?”
When these words were spoken, the old one turned his head away, and said:
“To-day I have not failed to be with her.”
When the strong one heard this, he took one of the seals he had caught, and gave it to the old man, and said:
“Take this; it is yours.”
And in this way he acted towards him from that time. The old one came home that day dragging a seal behind him. And this he could often do thereafter.
When the strong one came home, he said to his wife:
“When I go out to-morrow in my kayak, it is not to hunt seal; therefore watch carefully for my return when the sun is in the west.”
Next day he went out in his kayak, and when the sun was in the west, his wife went often and often to look out. And once when she went thus, she saw that he had come, and from that moment she was no longer sleepy.
As the strong one came nearer and nearer to land, he paddled more and more strongly.
Now his wife went down to that place where he was about to land, and turned and sat down with her back to the sea. The man unfastened his hunting fur from the ring of his kayak, and put his hand into the back of the kayak, and took out a sea serpent, and struck his wife on the back. At this she felt very cold, and her skin smarted. Then she stood up and went home. But her husband said no word to her. Then they slept, and awakened, and then the old one came to them and said:
“Now you must search for the carrion of a cormorant, with only the skeleton remaining, for your wife is with child.”
And the strong one went out eagerly to search for this.
One day, paddling southward in his kayak, as was his custom, he started to search all the little bird cliffs. And coming to the foot of one of them, he saw that which he so greatly wished to see; the carrion of a big cormorant, which had now become a skeleton. It lay there quite easy to see. But there was no way of coming to the place where it was, not from above nor from below, nor from the side. Yet he would try. He tied his hunting line fast to the cross thongs on his kayak, and thrust his hand into a small crack a little way up the cliff. And now he tried to climb up there with his hands alone. And at last he got that skeleton, and came down in the same way back to his kayak, and got into it, and rowed away northward to his home. And almost before he had reached land, the old one came to him, and the cormorant skeleton was taken out of the kayak. Now the old one trembled all over with surprise. And he took the skeleton, and put it away, and said:
“Now you must search for a soft stone, which has never felt the sun, a stone good to make a lamp of.”
And the strong man began to search for such a stone.
Once when he was on this search, he came to a cliff, which stood in such a place that it never felt the sun, and here he found a fine lamp stone. And he brought it home, and the old one took it and put it away.
A few days passed, and then the strong one’s wife began to feel the birth-pangs, and the old one went in there at once with his own wife. Then she bore a son, and when he was born, the strong man said to the old one:
“This is your child; name him after some dead one.”1
“Let him be named after him who died of hunger in the north, at Amerdloq.”
This the old one said. And then he said:
“His name shall be Qujâvârssuk!”
And in this way the old one gave him that name.
Now Qujâvârssuk grew up, and when he was grown big enough, the strong man said to the old one:
“Make a kayak for him.”
Now the old one made him a kayak, and the kayak was finished. And when it was finished, he took it by the nose and thrust him out into the water to try it, but without loosing his hold. And when he did this, there came one little seal up out of the water, and others also. This was a sign that he should be a strong man, a chief, when the seals came to him so. When he drew him out of the water, they all went down again, and not a seal remained.
Now the old one began to make hunting things. When they were finished, and there was nothing more to be done in making them, and he thought the boy was of a good age to begin going out to hunt seal, he said to the strong one:
“Now row out with him, for he must go seal hunting.”
Then he rowed out with him, and when they had come so far out that they could not see the bottom, he said:
“Take the harpoon point with its line, and fix it on the shaft.”
They had just made things ready for their hunting and rowed on farther, when they came to a flock of black seal.
The strong one said to him:
“Now row straight at them.”
And then he rowed straight at them, and he lifted his harpoon and he threw it and he struck. And this he did every day in the same manner, and made a catch each time he went out in his kayak.
Then some people who had made a wintering place in the south heard, in a time of hunger, of Qujâvârssuk, the strong man who never suffered want. And when they heard this, they began to come and visit the place where he had land. In this way there came once a man who was called Tugto, and his wife. And while they were there—they were both great wizards—the man and his wife began to quarrel, and so the wife ran away to live alone in the hills. And now the man could not bring back his wife, for he was not so great a wizard as she. And when the people who had come to visit the place went away, he could do nothing but stay there.
One day when he was out hunting seal at Ikerssuaq, he saw a big black seal which came up from the bottom with a red fish in its mouth.
Now he took bearings by the cliffs of the place where the seal went down, and after that time, when he was out in his kayak, he took up all the bird wings that he saw, and fastened all the pinion feathers together.
Tugto was a big man, yet he had taken up so much of this that it was a hard matter for him to carry it when he took it on his back, and then he thought it must be
