Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/95

 THE MAN WHO TOOK A VIXEN TO WIFE

HERE was once a man who wished to have a wife unlike all other wives, and so he caught a little fox, a vixen, and took it home to his tent.

One day when he had been out hunting, he was surprised to find on his return that his little fox-wife had become a real woman. She had a lovely top-knot, made of that which had been her tail. And she had taken off the furry skin. And when he saw her thus, he thought her very beautiful indeed.

Now she began to talk about journeyings, and how greatly she desired to see other people. And so they went off, and came to a place and settled down there.

One of the men there had taken a little hare to wife. And now these two men thought it would be a pleasant thing to change wives. And so they did.

But the man who had borrowed the little vixen wife began to feel scorn of her after he had lived with her a little while. She had a foxy smell, and did not taste nice.

But when the little vixen noticed this she was very angry, for it was her great desire to be well thought of by the men. So she knocked out the lamp with her tail, dashed out of the house, and fled away far up into the hills.

Up in the hills she met a worm, and stayed with him.

But her husband, who was very fond of her, went out in search of her. And at last, after a long time, he found her living with the worm, who had taken human form.

But now it was revealed that this worm was the man's old enemy. For he had once, long before, burned a worm, and it was the soul of that worm which had now taken human form. He could even see the marks of burning in its face.

Now the worm challenged the man to pull arms, and they wrestled. But the man found the worm very easy to master, and soon he won.