to a little island, and pitched their tent on the sunny
side. And when Asaloq then went up on the hillside to look out, he
saw many umiaks coming from the northward, and they camped on the
shady side. Then he heard them say:
"Now search carefully about." And others said:
"He can hardly be on such a little island."
And now Asaloq sang magic songs over them from the top of the hill,
and at last he heard them say:
"We may as well go home again."
Now Asaloq stood and watched them row away, and not until they were
out of sight did he set off again to the southward. At last they
reached Aluk, and there their bones still rest.
Here ends this story.
UKALEQ
Ukaleq, men say, was a strong man. Whenever he heard news of game,
even if it were a great bear, he had only to go out after it, and he
never failed to kill it.
Once the winter came, and the ice grew firm, and then men began to go
out hunting bears on the ice. One day there was a big bear. Ukaleq
set off in chase, but he soon found that it was not to be easily
brought down.
The bear sighted Ukaleq, and turned to pursue him. Ukaleq fled, but
grew tired at length. Now and again he managed to wound the beast,
but was killed himself at last, and at the same time the bear fell
down dead.
Now when his comrades came to look at the bear, its teeth began to
whisper, and then they knew that Ukaleq had been killed by a Magic
Bear. [7] And as there was no help for it, they took the dead man
home with them. And then his mother said:
"Lay him in the middle of the floor with a skin beneath him." She
had kept the dress he had worn as a little child, and now that he
was dead, she put it in her carrying bag, and went out with it to
the cooking place in the passage. And when she got there, she said:
"For five days I will neither eat nor drink."
Then she began hushing the dress in the bag as if it were a child,
and kept on hushing it until at last it began to move in the bag,
and just as it had commenced to move, there came some out from the
house and said:
"Ukaleq is beginning to quiver."
But she kept on hushing and hushing, and at last that which she had
in the bag began trying to crawl out. But then there came one from
the house and said:
"Ukaleq has begun to breathe; he is sitting up."
Hardly was this said when that which was in the bag sprang out,
making the whole house shake. Then they made up a bed for Ukaleq on
the side bench, and p
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