The strange boy

One morning he went home just after sunrise and found his new clothing ready. He took some food and put on the clothing, after which he told his mother that he was going on a journey to the north, His mother cried bitterly and begged him not to go, for no one ever went to the far northland and returned again. He did not mind this, but taking his bear spear and saying farewell, he started out, leaving his parents weeping and without hope of ever seeing him again, for they loved him very much, and his mother had told him truly that no one ever came back who had gone away from their village to the north.

The young man traveled far away, and as evening came on he reached a hut with the smoke rolling up through the hole in the roof. Taking off his waterproof coat, he laid it down near the door and crept carefully upon the roof and looked through the smoke hole. In the middle of the room burned a fire, and an old woman was sitting on the farther side, while just under him was sitting an old man making arrows. As the young man lay on the roof, the man on the inside cried out, without even raising his head, “Why do you lie there on the outside? Come in.” Surprised at being noticed by the old man with out the latter even looking up, he arose and went in. When he entered the house the man greeted him and asked why he was going to the north in search of a wife. Continued the old man, “There are many dangers there and you had better turn back. I am your father’s brother and mean well by you. Beyond here people are very bad, and if you go on you may never return.”

The young man was very much surprised to be told the object of his journey, when he had not revealed it even to his parents. After taking some food he slept until morning, then he prepared to go on his way. The old man gave him a small black object, filled with a yellow sub stance like the yolk of an egg, saying, as he did so, “Perhaps you will have little to eat on your way, and this will give you strength.” The traveler swallowed it at once and found it very strong to the taste, so that it made him draw a deep breath, saying, as he did so, “Ah, I feel strong.” Then he took up his spear and went on. Just before night he came to another solitary hut, and, as before, looked in, seeing a fire burning and an old woman sitting on one side and an old man making arrows just below him. Again the old man called out without raising his head, and asked him why he did not come in and not stay outside. He again was surprised by being told the object of his journey, and was warned against going farther. The young man gave no attention to this, but ate and slept as before. When he was ready to set out in the morning the old man saw he could not stay him, so gave him a small, clear, white object, telling the traveler that he would not get much to eat on the road, and it would help him. The young man at once swallowed this, but did not find it as strong as the object he had swallowed the day before. He was then told by the old man that if he heard anything on the way that frightened, him he must do the first thing that came into his mind.

“I will have no one to weep for me if anything should happen,” said the traveler, and he journeyed on, spear in hand. Toward the middle of the day he came to a large pond lying near the seashore, so he turned off to go around it on the inland side. When he had passed part of the way around the lake he heard a frightful roar like a clap of thunder, but so loud that it made him dizzy, and for a moment he lost all sense of his surroundings. He hurried forward, but every few moments the terrible noise was repeated, each time making him reel and feel giddy and even on the point of fainting, but he kept on. The noise increased in loudness and seemed to come nearer at every roar, until it sounded on one side close to him. Looking in the direction whence it came, he saw a large basket made of woven willow roots floating toward him in the air, and from it came the fearful noise.

Seeing a hole in the ground close by, the traveler sprang into it just as a terrible crash shook the earth and rendered him unconscious. He lay as if dead for some time, while the basket kept moving about as if searching for him and continuously giving out the fearful sounds. When the young man’s senses returned, he listened for a short time, and, everything having become quiet, went outside of his shelter and looked about. Close by was the basket resting on the ground with a man’s head and shoulders sticking out of its top. The moment he saw it the young man cried out, “Why are you waiting? Go on; don’t stop and give me a good loud noise, you.” Then he sprang back into the hole again and was instantly struck senseless by the fearful noise made by the basket. When he had recovered sufficiently he went out again, but could not see the basket. Then he raised both of his hands and called upon the thunder and lightning to come to his aid. Just then the basket came near again, with only the man’s head projecting from the top. He at once told the thunder and lightning to roar and flash about the basket, and they obeyed and crashed with such force that the basket shaman began to tremble with fear and fell to the ground.

As soon as the thunder stopped the basket began to retreat, the shaman being almost dead from fear. Then the young man cried out, “Thunder, pursue him; go before and behind him and terrify him.” The thunder did so, and the basket floated away slowly, falling to the ground now and then. Then the traveler went on, arriving at a village just at twilight. As he drew near a boy came out from the village to meet him, saying, “How do you come here from that direction? No one ever came here from that side before, for the basket shaman allows no living thing to pass the lake; no, not even a mouse. He always knows when anything comes that way and goes out to meet and destroy it.”

“I did not see anything,” said the traveler. “Well, you have not escaped yet,” said the boy, “for there is the basket man now, and he will kill you unless you go back.” When the young man looked he saw a great eagle rise and fly toward him, and the boy ran away. As the eagle came nearer it rose a short distance and then darted down to seize him in its claws. As it came down the young man struck himself on the breast with one hand and a gerfalcon darted forth from his mouth straight toward the eagle, flying directly into its abdomen and passing out of its mouth and away.

This gerfalcon was from the strong substance the young man had been given by the first old man on the road. When the gerfalcon darted from him the eagle closed his eyes, gasping for breath, which gave the young man a chance to spring to one side so that the eagle’s claws caught into the ground where he had stood. Again the eagle arose and darted down, and again the young man struck his breast with his hand, and an ermine sprang from his mouth and darted like a flash of light at the eagle and lodged under its wings, and in a moment had eaten its way twice back and forth through the bird’s side, and it fell dead, whereupon the ermine vanished. This ermine came from the gift of the second man with whom the traveler had stopped.

When the eagle fell the young man started toward the shaman’s house, and the boy cried to him, “Don’t go there, for you will be killed.” To this the traveler replied, “I don’t care, I wish to see the women there. I will go now, for I am angry, and if I wait till morning my anger will be gone and I will not be so strong as I am at present.” “You had better wait till morning,” said the boy, “for there are two bears guarding the door and they will surely kill you. But if you will go, go then, and be destroyed. I have tried to save you and will have nothing more to do with you.” And the boy went angrily back to the kashim. The young man then went on to the house, and looking into the entrance passage, saw a very large white bear lying there asleep. He called out, “Ah, White-bear,” at which the bear sprang up and ran at him. The young man leaped upon the top of the passageway and, as the bear ran out at him, drove the point of his spear into its brain, so that it fell dead. Then he drew the body to one side, looked in again, and saw a red bear lying there. Again he called out, “Ah, Redbear.” The red bear ran out at him and he sprang up to his former place. The red bear struck at him with one of its forepaws as it passed, and the young man caught the paw in his hand and, swinging the bear about his head, beat it upon the ground until there was nothing but the paw left, and this he threw away and went into the house with out further trouble. Sitting at the side of the room were an old man and woman, and on the other side was a beautiful young woman whose image he had seen in his dreams, which had caused him to make his long journey. She was crying when he went in, and he went and sat beside her, saying, “What are you crying for; what do you love enough to cry for?” To which she replied, “You have killed my husband, but I am not sorry for that, for he was a bad man; but you killed the two bears. They were my brothers, and I feel badly and cry for them.” “Do not cry,” said he, “for I will be your husband.” Here he remained for a time, taking this woman for his wife and living in the house with her parents. He slept in the kashim every fourth night and at home the rest of the time.

After he had lived there for a while, he saw that his wife and her parents became more and more gloomy, and they cried very often. Then he saw things done that made him think they intended to do him evil. Becoming sure of this, he went home one day and, putting his hand on his wife’s forehead, turned her face to him, and said: “You are planning to kill me, you unfaithful woman, and as a punishment you shall die.” Then taking his knife, he cut his wife’s throat, and went gloomily back to his village, where he lived with his parents as before. When the memory of his unfaithful wife had become faint, he took a wife from among the maidens of the village and lived happily with her the rest of his days.

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