Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/146

126 side, his bladder float was gone, and he himself was rowing as fast as he could towards land. His wife, who was looking out for him as usual, shading her eyes with her hands, said then:

“But what has happened to Qasiagssaq?”

As soon as a voice could reach the land, Qasiagssaq cried:

“Now you need not be afraid of breaking the handles of your knives; I have struck a great walrus, and it has gone down under water with my two small bladder floats. One or another of those who are out after seal will be sure to find it.”

He himself remained altogether idle, and having come into his house, did not go out again. And as the kayaks began to come in, others went down to the shore and told them the news:

“Qasiagssaq has struck a walrus.”

And this they said to all the kayaks as they came home, but as usual, there was one of them that remained out a long time, and when at last he came back, late in the evening, they told him the same thing: “Qasiagssaq, it is said, has struck a walrus.”

“That I do not believe, for here are his bladder floats; they had been tied to a stone, and the knot had worked loose.”

Then they brought those bladder floats to Qasiagssaq and said:

“Here are your bladder floats; they were fastened to a stone, but the knot worked loose.”

“When Qasiagssaq does such things, one cannot but feel shame for him,” said his wife as usual.

“Hrrrr!” said Qasiagssaq, to frighten her.

And after that Qasiagssaq went about as if nothing had happened.

One day he was out in his kayak as usual at a place where there was much ice; here he caught sight of a speckled seal, which had crawled up on to a piece of the ice. He rowed up to it, taking it unawares, and lifted his harpoon ready to throw, but just as he was about to throw, he looked at the point, and then he laid the harpoon down again, saying to himself: “Would it not be a pity, now, for that skin, which is to be used to make breeches for my wife, to be pierced with holes by the point of a harpoon?”

So he lay alongside the piece of ice, and began whistling to that seal. And he was just about to grasp hold of it when the