Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/34

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24
ESKIMO FOLK-TALES

were both great wizards — the man and his wife began to quarrel, and so the wife ran away to live alone in the hills. And now the man could not bring back his wife, for he was not so great a wizard as she. And when the people who had come to visit the place went away, he could do nothing but stay there.

One day when he was out hunting seal at Ikerssuaq, he saw a big black seal which came up from the bottom with a red fish in its mouth.

Now he took bearings by the cliffs of the place where the seal went down, and after that time, when he was out in his kayak, he took up all the bird wings that he saw, and fastened all the pinion feathers together.

Tugto was a big man, yet he had taken up so much of this that it was a hard matter for him to carry it when he took it on his back, and then he thought it must be enough for that depth of water.

At last the ice lay firm, and when the ice lay firm, he began to make things ready to go out and fish. One morning he woke, and went away over land. He came to a lake, and walked over it, and came again on to the land. And thus he came to the place where lay that water he was going to fish, and he went out on the ice while it was still morning. Then he cut a great hole in the ice, and just as he cast out the weight on his line, the sun came up. It came quite out, and went across the sky, all in the time he was letting out his line. And not until the sun had gone half through the day did the weight reach the bottom. Then he hauled up the line a little way, and almost before it was still, he felt a pull. And he hauled it up, and it was a mighty sea perch. This he killed, but did not let down his line a second time, for in that way it would become evening. He cut a hole in the lower jaw of the fish, and put in a cord to carry it with. And when he took it on his head, it was so long that the tail struck against his heel.

Then in this manner he walked away, and came to land. When he came to the big lake he had walked over in the morning, he went out on it. But when he had come half the way over, the ice began to make a noise, and when he looked round, it seemed to him that the noise in the ice was following him from behind.

Now he went away running, but as he ran he fainted suddenly away, and lay a long time so. When he woke again, he was lying down. He thought a little, and then he remembered. "Au: I am