last the ice lay firm, and when the ice lay firm, he began to make things ready to go out and fish. One morning he woke, and went away over land. He came to a lake, and walked over it, and came again on to the land. And thus he came to the place where lay that water he was going to fish, and he went out on the ice while it was still morning. Then he cut a great hole in the ice, and just as he cast out the weight on his line, the sun came up. It came quite out, and went across the sky, all in the time he was letting out his line. And not until the sun had gone half through the day did the weight reach the bottom. Then he hauled up the line a little way, and almost before it was still, he felt a pull. And he hauled it up, and it was a mighty sea perch. This he killed, but did not let down his line a second time, for in that way it would become evening. He cut a hole in the lower jaw of the fish, and put in a cord to carry it with. And when he took it on his head, it was so long that the tail struck against his heel.
Then in this manner he walked away, and came to land. When he came to the big lake he had walked over in the morning, he went out on it. But when he had come half the way over, the ice began to make a noise, and when he looked round, it seemed to him that the noise in the ice was following him from behind.
Now he went away running, but as he ran he fainted suddenly away, and lay a long time so. When he woke again, he was lying down. He thought a little, and then he remembered. “Au: I am running away!” And then he got up and turned round, but could not find a break in the ice anywhere. But he could feel in himself that he had now become a much greater wizard than before.
He went on farther, and chose his way up over a little hilly slope, and when he could see clearly ahead, he perceived a mighty beast.
It was one of those monsters which men saw in the old far-off times, quite covered with bird-skins. And it was so big that not a twitch of life could be seen in it. He was afraid now, and turned round, until he could no longer see it. Then he left that way, and came out into another place, where he saw another looking just the same. He now went back again in such a manner that it could not find him, but then he remembered that a wizard can win power to vanish away, even to vanish into the ground, if he can pull to pieces the skin of such a monster.
When his thoughts had begun to work upon this, he threw away his burden and went towards it and began to wrestle with it. And it was not a long time before he began to tear its covering in pieces; the flesh on it was not bigger than a thumb. Then he went away from it, and took up his burden again on his head, and went wandering on. When he was again going along homewards, he felt in himself that he had become a great wizard, and he could see the door openings of all the villages in that countryside quite close together.
And when he came home, he caused these words to be said:
“Let the people come and hear.”
And now many people came hurrying into the house. And he began calling up spirits. And in this calling he raised himself up and flew away towards his wife.
And when he came near her in his spirit flight, and hovered above her, she was sitting sewing. He went straight down through the roof, and when she tried to escape through the floor he did likewise, and reached her in the earth. After this, she was very willing when he tried to take her home with him, and he took her home with him, and now he had his wife again, and those two people lived together until they were very old.
One winter, the frost came, and was very hard and the sea was frozen, and only a little opening was left, far out over the ice. And hither Qujâvârssuk was forced to carry his kayak each day, out to the open water, but each day he caught two seals, as was his custom.
And then, as often happens in time of dearth, there came many poor people wandering over the ice, from the south, wishing to get some good thing of all that Qujâvârssuk caught. Once there came also two old men, and they were his mother’s kinsmen. They came on a visit. And when they came, his mother said to them:
“Now you have come before I have got anything cooked. It is true that I have something from the cooking of yesterday; eat that if you will, while I cook something now.” Then she set before them the kidney part of a black seal, with its own blubber as dripping. Now one of the two old men began eating, and went on eagerly, dipping the meat in the dripping. But the other stopped eating very soon.
Then Qujâvârssuk came home, as was his custom, with two seals, and said to his mother:
“Take the breast part and boil it quickly.”
For this was the best part of the seal. And she boiled it, and it was done in a moment. And then she set it on a dish and brought it to those two.
“Here, eat.”
And now at last the one of them began really to eat, but the other took a piece of the shoulder. When Qujâvârssuk saw this, he said:
“You should not begin to eat from the wrong side.”
And when he had said that, he said again:
“If you eat from that side, then my catching of the seals will cease.” But the old man became very angry in his mind at this order.
Next morning, when they were about to set off again southward, Qujâvârssuk’s mother gave them as much meat as they could carry. They went home southward, over the ice, but when they had gone a little way, they were forced to stop, because their burden was so heavy. And when they had rested a little, they went on again. When they had come near to their village, one said to the other:
“Has there not wakened a thought in your mind? I am very angry with Qujâvârssuk. Yesterday, when we came there, they gave us only a kidney piece in welcome, and that is meat I do not like at all.”
“Hum,” said the other. “I thought it was all very good. It was fine tender meat for my teeth.”
At these words, the other began again to speak:
“Now that my anger has awakened, I will make a Tupilak for that miserable Qujâvârssuk.”
But the other said to him:
“Why will you do such a thing? Look; their gifts are so many that we must carry the load upon our heads.”
But that comrade would not change his purpose, not for all the trying of the other to turn him from it. And at last the other ceased to speak of it.
Now as the cold grew stronger, that opening in the ice became smaller and smaller, at the place where Qujâvârssuk was used to go with his kayak. One day, when he came down to it, there was but just room for his kayak to go in, and if now a seal should rise, it could not fail to strike the kayak. Yet he got into the kayak, and at the time when he was fixing the head on his harpoon, he saw a black seal coming up from below. But seeing that it must touch both the ice and the kayak, it went down again without coming right to the surface. Then Qujâvârssuk went up again and went home, and that was the first time he went home without having made a catch, in all the time he had been a hunter.
When he had come home, he sat himself down behind his mother’s lamp, sitting on the bedplace, so that only his feet hung down over the floor. He was so troubled that he would not eat. And later in the evening, he said to his mother:
“Take meat to Tugto and his wife, and ask one of them to magic away the ice.”
His mother went out and cut the meat of a black seal across at the middle. Then she brought the tail half, and half the blubber of a seal, up to Tugto
