Part 5

"No," said the wifeless man; "such things I am not fit to receive; the only thing I cannot overcome is my miserable sleepiness."

"First come in with me to land," said the Fire Man. And they went in together.

When they reached the place, the Noseless One said:

"This is the man who saved my life when I was near to death."

"I happened to save you because my course lay athwart your own," said the wifeless man. "It is the first time for many days that I have been out at all in my kayak."

"One beast and one only you may choose when you are on your homeward way. And be careful never to tell what you have seen, or it will go ill with your hunting hereafter."

Those were the Fire Man's words. And then the wifeless man rowed home.

But when the time for his expected return had come, he was nowhere to be seen, and the young girls began to rejoice at the misfortune which must have befallen him. For they could not bear the sight of that man.

But then suddenly he came in sight round the point, and at once all cried:

"Here comes one who looks like the wifeless man."

And then all the young unmarried girls ran into their houses.

"And the wifeless man has made a catch," one cried.

And hardly had the evening begun to fall when the wifeless man went to rest, and hardly had the light appeared when the wifeless man went out hunting, long before his fellows. Hardly had the sun appeared in the sky, when the wifeless man came home with three seals. And his fellow-hunters were then but just preparing to set out.

Thus the days passed for that wifeless man. Early in the morning he would go out, and when the sun had only just begun to climb the sky, he would come home with his catch.

Then the unmarried girls began talking together.

"What has come to our wifeless man," they said, and began to vie with one another in seeking his favour.

"Let me, let me," they cried all together.

And the wifeless man turned towards them, and laughingly chose out the best in the flock.

And now they lived together, the wifeless man and the girl, and every day there was freshly caught seal meat to be cut up. At last she grew weary, and cried:

"Why ever do you catch such a terrible lot?"

"H'm," said he. "The seals come of themselves, and I catch them--that is all."

But she kept on asking him, and so he said at last:

"It was in this way. Once...." But having said thus much, he ceased, and went to rest. But it was long before he could sleep. And the sun was just over the houses of the village before he awoke and set out next day.

That day he caught but one seal.

In the evening, his wife began again asking and asking, and seeing that she would not desist, at last he said:

"It was in this way. Once ... well, I woke up in the evening, and rowed out, and heard a man crying for help, because his kayak had upset. And I rowed up to him and righted him again, and when I looked at him, it was one of the Noseless Ones."

"'It was a good thing you were not idling about by the houses,' said the Noseless One to me.

"'I had but just got into my kayak,'" said I.

And thus he told all that had happened to him that day, and from that time forward he lost his power of hunting, for now his old sleepiness came over him once more, and he lost all.

At last he had not even skins enough to give his wife for her clothes, and so she ran away and left him. He set off in chase, but she escaped through a crevice in the rocks, a narrow place whereby he could just pass.

Now he lay in wait there, and soon he heard a whispering inside:

"You go out to him."

And out crawled a blowfly, and said:

"Take me."

"I will not take you," said the wifeless man, "for you pick your food from the muck-heaps."

The blowfly laughed and crawled back again, and he could hear it say:

"He will not take me, because I pick my food from the muck-heaps."

Then there was more whispering inside.

"Now you go out."

And out came a fly.

"You may have me," it said.

"Thanks," said the wifeless man, "but I do not care for you at all. You lay your eggs about anyhow, and your eyes are quite abominably big."

At this the fly laughed, and went inside with the same message as before.

Again there was a whispering inside.

"Take me," said the cranefly.

"No, your legs are too long," said the wifeless man. And the cranefly went in again, laughing.

Then out came a centipede.

"Take me."

"I will not take you," said the wifeless man, "for you have far too many legs. Your body clings to the ground with all those legs, and your eyes are simply nasty."

And the centipede laughed a cackling laugh and went in again.

They whispered together again in there, and out came a gnat.

"Take me," said the gnat.

"No thanks, you bite," said the wifeless man. And the gnat went in again, laughing.

And then at last his wife bade him come in to her, since he would have none of the others, and at last he just managed to squeeze his body in through the crack, and then he took her to wife again.

"Comb my hair," said the wifeless man, now very happy once more.

And his wife began, and said words above him thus:

"Do not wake until the fulmar begins to cry: sleep until we hear a sound of young birds."

And he fell asleep.

And when at last he awoke, he was all alone. The earth was blue with summer, and the fulmar cried noisily on the bird cliff. And it had been winter when he crawled in through the crack.

When he came down to his kayak, the skin was rotted through with age.

And then I suppose he reached home as usual, and now sits scratching himself at ease.

THE VERY OBSTINATE MAN

There was once an Obstinate Man--no one in the world could be as obstinate as he. And no one dared come near him, so obstinate was he, and he would always have his own way in everything.

Once it came about that his wife was in mourning. Her little child had died, and therefore she was obliged to remain idle at home; this is the custom of the ignorant, and this we also had to do when we were as ignorant as they.

And while she sat thus idle and in mourning, her husband, that Obstinate One, came in one day and said:

"You must sew the skin of my kayak."

"You know that I am not permitted to touch any kind of work," said his wife.

"You must sew the skin of my kayak," he said again. "Bring it down to the shore and sew it there."

And so the woman, for all her mourning, was forced to go down to the shore and sew the skin of her husband's kayak. But when she had been sewing a little, suddenly her thread began to make a little sound, and the little sound grew to a muttering, and louder and louder. And at last a monster came up out of the sea; a monster in the shape of a dog, and said:

"Why are you sewing, you who are still in mourning?"

"My husband will not listen to me, for he is so obstinate," she said.

And then the mighty dog sprang ashore and fell upon that husband.

But that Obstinate One was not abashed; as usual, he thought he would get his own way, and his way now was to kill the dog. And they fought together, and the dog was killed.

But now the owner of the dog appeared, and he turned out to be the Moon Man.

And he fell upon that Obstinate One, but the Obstinate One would as usual not give way, but fell upon him in turn. He caught the Moon Man by the throat, and had nearly strangled him. He clenched and clenched, and the Moon Man was nearly strangled to death.

"There will be no more ebb-tide or flood if you strangle me," said the Moon Man.

But the Obstinate One cared little for that; he only clutched the tighter.

"The seal will never breed again if you strangle me," cried the Moon Man.

But the Obstinate One did not care at all, though the Moon Man threatened more and more.

"There will never be dawn or daylight again if you kill me," said the Moon Man at last.

And at this the Obstinate One began to hesitate; he did not like the thought of living in the dark for ever. And he let the Moon Man go.

Then the Moon Man called his dog to life again, and made ready to leave that place. And he took his team and cast the dogs up into the air one by one, and they never came down again, and at last there was the whole team of sledge dogs hovering in the air.

"May I come and visit you in the Moon?" asked the Obstinate One. For he suddenly felt a great desire to do so.

"Yes, come if you please," said the Moon Man. "But when you see a great rock in your way, take great care to drive round behind it. Do not pass it on the sunny side, for if you do, your heart will be torn out of you."

And then the Moon Man cracked his whip, and drove off through the naked air.

Now the Obstinate One began making ready for his journey to the moon. It had been his custom to keep his dogs inside the house, and therefore they had a thick layer of ingrown dirt in their coats. Now he took them and cast them out into the sea, that they might become clean again. The dogs, little used to going out at all, were nearly frozen to death by that cold water; they ran about, shivering with the cold.

Then the Obstinate One took a dog, and cast it up in the air, but it fell down heavily to earth again. He took another and did so, and then a third, but they all fell down again. They were still too dirty.

But the Obstinate One would not give in, and now he cast them out into the sea once more.

And when he then a second time tried casting them up in the air, they stayed there. And now he made himself a sledge, threw his team up in the air, and drove off.

But when he came to the rock he was to drive round, this Obstinate One said to himself:

"Why should I drive round a rock at all? I will go by the sunny side."

When he came up alongside, he heard a woman singing drum songs, and whetting her knife; she kept on singing, and he could hear how the steel hummed as she worked.

Now he tried to overpower that old woman, but lost his senses. And when he came to himself, his heart was gone.

"I had better go round after all," he thought to himself. And he went round by the shady side.

Thus he came up to the moon, and told there how he had lost his heart merely for trying to drive round a rock by the sunny side.

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. And her thoughts were evil because she was working before her mourning time was passed.

And her husband grew angry at this, forgetting that he had himself but newly bidden her work despite her mourning.

And after he had been there some time, the Moon Man opened a stone in the entrance to the passage way, and let him look down. The place was full of walrus, there were so many that they had to lie one on top of another.

"It is a joy to catch such beasts," said the Moon Man, and the Obstinate One felt a great desire to harpoon one of them.

"But you must not, you cannot," said the Moon Man, and promised him a share of the catch he had just made himself. But the Obstinate One would not be content with this; he took harpoons from the Moon Man's store, and harpooned a walrus. Then he held it on the line--he was a man of very great strength, that Obstinate One--and managed to kill it. And in the same way he also dealt with another.

After his return from the Moon Man's place, he left off being obstinate, and never again forced his wife to work while she was in mourning.

THE DWARFS

A man who was out in his kayak saw another kayak far off, and rowed up to it. When he came up with it, he saw that the man in it was a very little man, a dwarf.

"What do you want," asked the dwarf, who was very much afraid of the man.

"I saw you from afar and rowed up," said the man.

But the dwarf was plainly troubled and afraid.

"I was hunting a little fjord seal which I cannot hit," he said.

"Let me try," said the other. And so they waited until it came up to breathe. Hardly had it come up, when the harpoons went flying towards it, and entered in between its shoulder-blades.

"Ai, ai--what a throw!" cried the dwarf in astonishment. And the man took the seal and made a tow-line fast.

Then the two kayaks set off together in towards land.

"Hum--hum. Wouldn't care to ... come and visit us?" [5] said the dwarf suddenly.

But this the man would gladly do.

"Hum--hum. I've a wife ... and a daughter ... very beautiful daughter ... hum--hum. Many men wanted her ... wouldn't have them ... can't take her by force ... very strong. Thought of taking her to wife myself ... hum--hum. But she is too strong for me ... own daughter."

They rowed on a while, and then the little one spoke again.

"Hum--hum. Might perhaps do for you ... you could manage her ... what?"

"Let us first see her," said the man. And now they rowed into a great deep fjord.

When they came to the place, they landed and went up at once to the house of the little old man. And those in the house did all they could that the stranger might be well pleased. When they had been sitting there a while, the old man said:

"Hum--hum ... our guest has made a catch ... he comes to us bringing game."

Now it was easy to see that they would gladly have tasted the flesh of that little seal. And so the guest said:

"If you care to cook that meat, then set to work and cut it up as soon as you please. Cut it up and give to those who wish to eat of it."

The little old man was delighted at this, and sent out his two women-folk to cut up that seal. But they stayed away a long while, and no one came in with any meat. So the little old man went out to look for them.

And there stood the two women, hauling at the little fjord seal, which they could not manage to drag up from the shore. They could not even manage it with the old man's help. They hauled away, all three of them, bending their bodies to the ground in their efforts, but the seal would not move. 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. When they held such a piece in their hands, it reached to the ground, and their hands and clothes were covered with fat.

Inside on the bench sat an old hag who now began trying to make herself agreeable to the guest. She squeezed up close to him and kept on talking to him, and looking at him kindly. She was old and ugly, and the man would have nothing to do with her. Suddenly he gave a loud whistle.

"Ugh--ugh!" cried the old hag in a fright, and fell down from the bench. Then she stumbled down into the passage way, and disappeared.

And now after they had feasted on the seal meat, those from the houses up above cried out:

"Let the guest now come up here; we have foxes' liver to eat!"

And as he did not come at once, they cried again. And then he went up. The house was full of people, all busy eating foxes' liver.

"It is very hard to cut," said the dwarfs. "It is dried."

And the dwarfs worked away as hard as they could, but could not cut it through. But the guest took and munched and crunched as if it had been fresh meat.

"Ai, ai--see how he can eat," cried some.

But all those in the house were very kind to him, and would gladly have seen him married into their family. And the young women had dressed their hair daintily with mussel shells, that the guest might think them the finer. But he cared for none of them, for the little old man's daughter was the most beautiful.

And therefore he went down to that house again when it was time to go to rest. And he said he would have her to wife.

And so they lived happily together, and soon they had a child.

And now the man began to long for his own place and kin. He thought more and more of his old mother, who was still alive when he started off.

And so one day he said he was going to visit his home.

"We will all go with you," said the little old man; "we will visit your kinsfolk."

And so they made ready for the journey, and set out.

Now when they came to the place of real people, all these were greatly astonished to find their old comrade still alive. For they had thought him dead long since.

And the dwarf people lived happily enough among the real men, and after a little time they forgot to be troubled and afraid.

But one day when the little dwarf grandmother was sitting at the opening of the passage way with the little child, she dropped the child in the passage.

"Hlurp--hlurp--hlurp," was all she heard. A great dog, his face black on one side and white on the other, lay there in the passage, and it ate up the child on the spot.

"Ai--ai," she cried. "Nothing is left but a little smear on the ground."

And now the dwarf folk were filled with horror, and the little old man was for setting off at once. So they gathered their belongings together and set out.

And whenever they came to a village, they went up on shore, and the old man always went up with his tent-skins on his back.

"Are there any dogs here? Is there a great beast with a black-and-white face?" was always the first thing he asked.

"Yes, indeed." And before they could turn round, the old man was back in his boat again, so great was his fear of dogs.

And at last the skin was worn quite away from his forehead with carrying of tent-skins up on to the shore in vain. [6]

One day they were lying-to, when a wind began to blow from the north.

"Are there dogs here?" asked the old man, and groaned, for his forehead was flayed and smarting, so often had he borne those tent-skins up and down. But before any could answer, he heard the barking of the dogs themselves. And in a moment he was back in his boat again.

The wind had grown stronger. The seas were frothing white, and the foam was scattered about.

Then the old dwarf stood up in his boat and cried:

"The sky is clearing to the east with crested clouds."

Now this was a magic song, and as soon as he had sung it, the sea was calm and bright once more.

Then the old man went on again. So great was the power of his magic words that he could calm the sea. But for all that he had no peace, by reason of the dogs.

And he went on his way again, but whither he came at last I do not know.

THE BOY FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, WHO FRIGHTENED THE PEOPLE OF THE HOUSE TO DEATH

Well, you see, it was the usual thing: "The Obstinate One" had taken a wife, and of course he beat her, and when he wanted to make it an extra special beating, he took a box, and banged her about with that.

One day, when he had been beating her as usual, she ran away. And she was just about to have a child at that time. She walked straight out into the sea, and was nearly drowned, but suddenly she came to herself again, and found that she was at the bottom of the sea. And there she built herself a house.

While she was down there, the child was born. And when she went to look at it, she nearly died of fright, it was so ugly. Its eyes were jellyfish, its hair of seaweed, and the mouth was like a mussel.

And now these two lived down there together. The child grew up, and when it was a little grown up, it could hear the children playing on the earth up above, and it said:

"I should like to go up and see."

"When you have grown stronger, then you may go," said his mother. And then the boy began practising feats of strength, with stones. And at last he was able to pick up stones as big as a chest, and carry them into the house.

One evening, when it was dark, they heard again a calling from above. The children, not content with simply shouting at their play, began crying out: "Iyoi-iyoi-iyoi," with all their might.