Little Kagssagssuk fled into the house, and cried: “Lift me up. I must have my gloves, and they are up there!”

So they lifted him up to the drying frame under the roof.

And then they heard the Great Fire come hurrying into the house from without. He had a great live ribbon seal for a whip, and that whip had long claws. And then he began dragging the children out through the passage with his great whip, and each time he drew one out, that one was frizzled up. And at last there were no more. But before going away, the Great Fire reached up and touched with his finger a skin which was hanging on the drying frame.

As soon as the Great Fire had gone away, little Kagssagssuk crawled down from the drying frame and went over to the people who were gathered in the wizard’s house, and told them what had happened. But none believed what he said.

“You have killed them yourself,” they declared.

“Very well, then,” he said, “if you think so, try to make a noise yourselves, like the children did.”

And now they began cooking blubber above the entrance to the house, and when the oil was boiling and bubbling as hard as it could, they began making a mighty noise. And true enough, up came the Great Fire outside.

But little Kagssagssuk was not allowed to come into the house, and therefore he hid himself in the store shed. The Great Fire came into the house, and brought with it the live ribbon seal for a whip. They heard it coming in through the passage, and then they poured boiling oil over it, and his whip being thus destroyed, the Great Fire went away.

But from that time onward, all the people of the village were unkind to little Kagssagssuk, and that although he had told the truth. Up to that time he had lived in the house of Umerdlugtoq, who was a great man, but now he was forced to stay outside always, and they would not let him come in. If he ventured to step in, though it were for no more than to dry his boots, Umerdlugtoq, that great man, would lift him up by the nostrils, and cast him over the high threshold again.

And little Kagssagssuk had two grandmothers; the one of these beat him as often as she could, even if he only lay out in the passage. But his other grandmother took pity on him, because he was the son of her daughter, who had been a woman like herself, and therefore she dried his clothes for him.

When, once in a while, that unfortunate boy did come in, Umerdlugtoq’s folk would give him some tough walrus hide to eat, wishing only to give him something which they knew was too tough for him. And when they did so, he would take a little piece of stone and put it between his teeth, to help him, and when he had finished, put it back in his breeches, where he always kept it. When he was hungry, he would sometimes eat of the dogs’ leavings on the ground outside, finding there walrus hide which even the dogs refused to eat.

He slept among the dogs, and warmed himself up on the roof, in the warm air from the smoke hole. But whenever Umerdlugtoq saw him warming himself there, he would haul him down by the nostrils.

Thus a long time passed, and it had been dark in the winter, and was beginning to grow light near the coming of spring. And now little Kagssagssuk began to go wandering about the country. Once when he was out, he met a big man, a giant, who was cutting up his catch, and on seeing him, Kagssagssuk cried out in a loud voice: “Ho, you man there, give me a piece of that meat!”

But although he shouted as loudly as he could, that giant could not hear him. At last a little sound reached the big man’s ears, and then he said: “Bring me luck, bring me luck!”

And he threw down a little piece of meat on the ground, believing it was one of the dead who thus asked.

But little Kagssagssuk, who, young as he was, had already some helping spirits, made that little piece of meat to be a big piece, just as the dead can do, and ate as much as he could, and when he could eat no more, there was still so much left that he could hardly drag it away to hide it.

Some time after this, little Kagssagssuk said to his mother’s mother: “I have by chance become possessed of much meat, and my thoughts will not leave it. I will therefore go out and look to it.”

So he went off to the place where he had hidden it, and lo! it was not there. And he fell to weeping, and while he stood there weeping, the giant came up.

“What are you weeping for?”

“I cannot find the meat which I had hidden in a store-place here.”

“Ho,” said the giant, “I took that meat. I thought it had belonged to another one.”

And then he said again: “Now let us play together.” For he felt kindly towards that boy, and had pity on him.

And they two went off together. When they came to a big stone, the giant said: “Now let us push this stone.” And they began pushing at the big stone until they twirled it round. At first, when little Kagssagssuk tried, he simply fell backwards.

“Now once more. Make haste, make haste, once more. And there again, there is a bigger one.”

And at last little Kagssagssuk ceased to fall over backwards, and was able instead to move the stones and twirl them round. And each time he tried with a larger stone than before, and when he had succeeded with that, a larger one still. And so he kept on. And at last he could make even the biggest stones twirl round in the air, and the stone said “leu-leu-leu-leu” in the air.

Then said the giant at last, seeing that they were equal in strength: “Now you have become a strong man. But since it was by my fault that you lost that piece of meat, I will by magic means cause bears to come down to your village. Three bears there will be, and they will come right down to the village.”

Then little Kagssagssuk went home, and having returned home, went up to warm himself as usual at the smoke hole. Then came the master of that house, as usual, and hauled him down by the nostrils. And afterwards, when he went to lie down among the dogs, his wicked grandmother beat him and them together, as was her custom. Altogether as if there were no strong man in the village at all.

But in the night, when all were asleep, he went down to one of the umiaks, which was frozen fast, and hauled it free.

Next morning when the men awoke, there was a great to-do.

“Hau! That umiak has been hauled out of the ice!”

“Hau! There must be a strong man among us!”

“Who can it be that is so strong?”

“Here is the mighty one, without a doubt,” said Umerdlugtoq, pointing to little Kagssagssuk. But this he said only in mockery.

And a little time after this, the people about the village began to call out that three bears were in sight — exactly as the giant had said. Kagssagssuk was inside, drying his boots. And while all the others were shouting eagerly about the place, he said humbly: “If only I could borrow a pair of indoor boots from some one.”

And at last, as he could get no others, he was obliged to take his grandmother’s boots and put them on.

Then he went out, and ran off over the hard-trodden snow outside the houses, treading with such force that it seemed as if the footmarks were made in soft snow. And thus he went off to meet the bears.

“Hau! Look at Kagssagssuk. Did you ever see….”

“What is come to Kagssagssuk; what can it be?”

Umerdlugtoq was greatly excited, and so astonished that his eyes would not leave the boy. But little Kagssagssuk grasped the biggest of the bears — a mother with two half-grown cubs — grasped that bear with his naked fists, and wrung its neck, so that it fell down dead. Then he took those cubs by the back of the neck and hammered their skulls together until they too were dead.

Then little Kagssagssuk went back homeward with the biggest bear over his shoulders, and one cub under each arm, as if they had been no more than hares. Thus he brought them up to the house, and skinned them; then he set about building a fireplace large enough to put a man in. For he was now going to cook bears’ meat for his grandmother, on a big flat stone.

Umerdlugtoq, that great man, now made haste to get away, taking his wives with him.

And Kagssagssuk took that old grandmother who was wont to beat him, and cast her on the fire, and she burned all up till only her stomach was left. His other grandmother was about to run away, but he held her back, and said: “I shall now be kind to you, for you always used to dry my boots.”

Now when Kagssagssuk had made a meal of the bears’ meat, he set off in chase of those who had fled away. Umerdlugtoq had halted upon the top of a high hill, just on the edge of a precipice, and had pitched their tent close to the edge.

Up came Kagssagssuk behind him, caught him by the nostrils and held him out over the edge, and shook him so violently that his nostrils burst. And there stood Umerdlugtoq holding his nose. But Kagssagssuk said to him: “Do not fear; I am not going to kill you. For you never used to kill me.”

And then little Kagssagssuk went into the tent, and called out to him: “Hi, come and look! I am in here with your wives!” For in the old days, Umerdlugtoq had dared him even to look at them.

And having thus taken due vengeance, Kagssagssuk went back to his village, and took vengeance there on all those who had ever ill-treated him. And some time after, he went away to the southward, and lived with the people there.

It is also told that he got himself a kayak there, and went out hunting with the other men. But being so strong, he soon became filled with the desire to be feared, and began catching hold of children and crushing them. And therefore his fellow-villagers harpooned him one day when he was out in his kayak.

All this we have heard tell of Kagssagssuk.

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The brother now ran into the house to tell what he had heard. And then he ran up a steep rocky slope and hid away.

The sledges drove up before the house, and Avovang went out to meet them, but he took with him the skin of a dog’s neck, which had been used to wrap him in when he was a child. And when then the men fell upon him, he simply placed that piece of skin on the ground and stood on it, and all his enemies could not wound him with their weapons, though they stabbed again and again.

At last he spoke, and said mockingly: “All my body is now like a piece of knotty wood, with the scars of the wounds you gave me, and yet you could not bring about my death.”

And as they could not wound him with their stabbing, they dragged him up to the top of a high cliff, thinking to cast him down. But each time they caught hold of him to cast him down, he changed himself into another man who was not their enemy. And at last they were forced to drive away, without having done what they wished.

It is also told of Avovang, that he once desired to travel to the south, and to the people who lived in the south, to buy wood. This men were wont to do in the old days, but now it is no longer so.

And so they set off, many sledges together, going southward to buy wood. And having done what they wished, they set out for home. On the way, they had made a halt to look for the breathing holes of seal, and while the men had been thus employed, the women had gone on. Avovang had taken a wife on that journey, from among the people of the south.

And while the men stood there looking for seal holes, all of them felt a great desire to possess Avovang’s wife, and therefore they tried to kill him. Qautaq stabbed him in the eyes, and the others caught hold of him and sent him sliding down through a breathing hole into the sea.

When his wife saw this, she was angry, and taking the wood which they had brought from the south, she broke it all into small pieces. So angry was she at thus being made a widow.

Then she went home, after having spoiled the men’s wood. But the sledges drove on.

Suddenly a great seal came up ahead of them, right in their way, where the ice was thin and slippery. And the sledges drove straight at it, but many fell through and were drowned at that hunting. And a little after, they again saw something in their way. It was a fox, and they set off in chase, but driving at furious speed up a mountain of screw-ice, they were dashed down and killed. Only two men escaped, and they made their way onward and told what had come to the rest.

And it was the soul of Avovang, whom nothing could wound, that had changed, first into a seal and then into a fox, and thus brought about the death of his enemies. And afterwards he made up his mind to let himself be born in the shape of every beast on earth, that he might one day tell his fellow-men the manner of their life.

At one time he was a dog, and lived on meat which he stole from the houses. When he was pressed for food, he would carefully watch the men about the houses, and eat anything they threw away.

But Avovang soon tired of being a dog, on account of the many beatings which fell to his lot in that life. And so he made up his mind to become a reindeer.

At first he found it far from easy, for he could not keep pace with the other reindeer when they ran.

“How do you stretch your hind legs at a gallop?” he asked one day.

“Kick out towards the farthest edge of the sky,” they answered. And he did so, and then he was able to keep pace with them.

But at first he did not know what he should eat, and therefore he asked the others.

“Eat moss and lichen,” they said.

And he soon grew fat, with thick suet on his back.

But one day the herd was attacked by a wolf, and all the reindeer dashed out into the sea, and there they met some kayaks in their flight, and one of the men killed Avovang.

He cut him up, and laid the meat in a cairn of stones. And there he lay, and when the winter came, he longed for the men to come and bring him home. And glad was he one day to hear the stones rattling down, and when they commenced to eat him, and cracked the bones with pieces of rock to get at the marrow, Avovang escaped and changed himself into a wolf.

And now he lived as a wolf, but here as before he found that he could not keep up with his comrades at a run. And they ate all the food, so that he got none.

“Kick up towards the sky,” they told him. And then at once he was able to overtake all the reindeer, and thus get food.

And later he became a walrus, but found himself unable to dive down to the bottom; all he could do was to swim straight ahead through the water.

“Take off as if from the middle of the sky; that is what we do when we dive to the bottom,” said the others. And so he swung his hindquarters up to the sky, and down he went to the bottom. And his comrades taught him what to eat; mussels and little white stones.

Once also he was a raven. “The ravens never lack food,” he said, “but they often feel cold about the feet.”

Thus he lived the life of every beast on earth. And at last he became a seal again. And there he would lie under the ice, watching the men who came to catch him. And being a great wizard, he was able to hide himself away under the nail of a man’s big toe.

But one day there came a man out hunting who had cut off the nail of his big toe. And that man harpooned him. Then they hauled him up on the ice and took him home.

Inside the house, they began cutting him up, and when the man cast the mittens to his wife, Avovang went with them, and crept into the body of the woman. And after a time he was born again, and became once more a man.

Running and expanding this site requires resources: from maintaining our digital platform to sourcing and curating new content. With your help, we can grow our collection, improve accessibility, and bring these incredible narratives to an even wider audience. Your sponsorship enables us to keep the world’s stories alive and thriving. ♦ Visit our Support page