Week 10 Essay: A Good Set to Read as a Pair

This week I read the Eskimo Folk Tales unit, and it was a lot of fun. Especially since I read the Alaskan Legends unit last week, and so I had a lot to compare and contrast it with. Both units have to deal with Inuit tribes, yet beyond snowy settings and seal hunting the two don’t really have anything in common.

In the Alaskan Legends unit, you see a lot of stories about where man came from, and why the sun goes away for long periods of time. The stories have a few folk tales but mainly fall more in line with themes common to mythology. The Eskimo Folk Tales unit, on the other hand, was more in line with what you’d expect - lots of stories about families in fantastical situations, ghosts and adopted bears, jealousy, love, that sort of thing. Very little to do with gods and large questions about why the world is as it is, and more general stories of ‘such and such happened to a guy named Bob many years ago’.

Perhaps it’s just a culture thing, but here in the south legends tend to be only a little different than folk tales, so the difference between the two units was honestly a little astounding to me. Many people would call something like Paul Bunyon a folk tale, while the whole title is “The Legend of Paul Bunyon”. Legends are the same as folk tales, just generally a smaller story, fewer characters, closer to home, and a much more localized thing than folktales are. So going into this pair of units, I thought I’d see very similar stories. I was entirely wrong, and pleasantly so. This enabled me a larger bit of the literature pie, so to speak. It wasn’t a few stories told different ways, but a large collection of many different stories. I highly recommend reading this as a pair - it was entirely worth it.

(Korra of the Southern Water Tribe - gif by Viraru)

(I just really love Avatar okay guys?)

Week 10 Storytelling: White Lady on the Moor

Once lived a lady, firm as a king

With no husband or sons to keep

Till the hunters, they brought her a tiny little thing

That needed a warm place to sleep

So took she a bear cub for son

And gained a family where she’d had none

They say that the lady, she stands on the moor

Overlooking the bright cold sea

Yes they say the old lady, she stands on the moor

With eyes that forevermore do see.

Yet shall I pray forever and a day

That her eyes never land on thee

That old lady had loved that cub like a son

And soon he grew tall and free

So mighty was the bear that his teeth did tear

Through hunters who’d approached foolishly.

She wove him a collar to give him a mark

So others would see and their hunt disembark

They say that the lady, she stands on the moor

Overlooking the winter deep

Yes they say the old lady, she stands on the moor

With eyes that nevermore will weep

Yet shall I pray forever and a day

That her eyes never land on thee

(The Grey Lady - web source)

The bear was now grown

A magnificently frightful beast

Yet she held it still as her own

Though on men’s flesh he sometimes did feast

Till the tribe they did say

We must now send it away

They say that the lady, she stands on the moor

Solid as the oaken keep

Yes they say the old lady, she stands on the moor

Her revenge always ready to keep

Thus shall I pray forever and a day

That her eyes never land on thee

Angered, the lady unleashed her wrath

And the tribe in their furs did quake

Till good speakers did say good reasons they hath

And this is the tale they spake

If he stays more hunters will show

Mad on the hunt till the cub falls down on bow

Now our little old lady, sad as can be

Went to the bear she called son

Imploring with reason and down on one knee

With weeping the deed was done

And giving a farewell marking of oil

She made him to forever be free of hunter’s toil

They say that the lady, she stands on the moor

Even until this day

Yes they say the old lady, she stands forevermore

Making sure that hunters will pay

If you see a bear with a black side

Run from him fast, run and hide

For the old lady who stands on the moor

Has long ages now been dead

But stands there she more than fourscore

To watch over her cub beloved

The white old lady protects him to this day

Or at least, that’s what they say

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Author's note: In my reading this week there was a story about a lady who raised a polar bear cub. Eventually for his own safety she had to turn him loose, but she smeared his side with oil to mark him so the hunters of her village would know not to hunt him. It then spoke of her going out and watching, looking for him so as to protect him from harm, and the image chilled me to the bone. So, we get this.

Bib: "The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son" from Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen (1921). Web source.

Week 10 Reading Diary: Eskimo Folk Tales

Reading Diary - Eskimo Folk Tales

• The Coming of Men, A Long, Long While Ago
• that’s really similar to Choctaw beliefs
• another flood story
• zombie rejected, becomes star?
• N-name, Who Escaped from the Tupilak
• The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son
• she stands out at dawn to see him leave? Aww.
• Q-name, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts
• do all ghosts switch genders or just Q?
• I-name
• The Insects that Wooed a Wifeless Man
• weird
• Makite
• is this story on drugs?
• A-name, Who Went A-Wandering
• so you kill liars, but not the man who was actually cheating? What?
• The Giant Dog*
• …...
• Papik, Who Killed His Wife’s Brother
• P-name, Who Killed his Uncle
• The Wife Who Lied
• if all this started because you took one of these women for wife, why would you take more wives from the cannibal tribe?
• The Eagle and the Whale
• A-name2, The Great Glutton
• totally thought that was going to turn into Hansel and Gretel
• A-name3
• the mainlanders aren’t very well liked, are they?
• A-name4
• T-name and S-name
• K-name