A tale of resilience and revenge, this story follows a woman fleeing her abusive husband, building a life under the sea, and raising a monstrous child. As the child grows strong, it ventures to the surface, terrifying villagers with its grotesque form. Guided by its mother, it avoids her past haunts, ultimately returning below, leaving death and awe in its wake.
Source:
Eskimo Folk-Tales
collected by Knud Rasmussen
[Copenhagen, Christiania], 1921
► Themes of the story
Transformation: The protagonist undergoes a significant change by moving from the human world to the bottom of the sea, where she builds a new life and gives birth to a child with unique, sea-inspired features.
Revenge and Justice: The story centers on the mother’s escape from her abusive husband and the subsequent actions of her son, who, upon reaching the surface, frightens villagers to death, symbolizing retribution for past wrongs.
Supernatural Beings: The tale features the birth of a child with extraordinary characteristics—eyes like jellyfish, hair of seaweed, and a mouth resembling a mussel—highlighting interactions with beings beyond the natural world.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about Inuit peoples
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.
► Continue reading…
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.
“Now I will go with you,” said the mother. “But you must not go into the houses nearest the shore, for there I often fled in when your father would have beaten me; I have suffered much evil up there. And when you thrust in your head, be sure to look as angry as you can.”
There were two houses on the shore, one a little way above the other. As they went up, the mother suddenly saw that her son was going into the one nearest the shore. And she cried: “Ha-a; Ha-a! When your father beat me, I always ran in there. Go to the one up above.”
And now the boy made his face fierce, and thrust in his head at the doorway, and all those inside fell down dead with fright. He would have beaten his father, but his father had died long since. Then he went down again to the bottom of the sea.
When the day dawned, the people from the house nearest the shore came out and said: “Ai! What footsteps are these, all full of seaweed?”
And seeing that the tracks led up to the house a little way above, they followed there, and found that all inside had died of fright.
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Dreamtime Whispers 