776 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



reindeer-skins, her bed was made of hard walrus-hides ; and she had 

 to live on miserable fish which the birds brought hei'. Too soon she 

 discovered that she had thrown her fortune away when, in her foolish 

 pride, she had rejected the Innuit youth. In her woe she sang : 



" Aya ! father, if you knew how wretched I am, you would come 

 to me, and we would hurry away in your boat over the waters. These 

 strange birds look unkindly upon me. The cold winds roar around 

 my bed ; they give me miserable food — oh, come and take me back 

 home I Aya ! " 



When a year had passed, and the sea was again stirred with warmer 

 winds, the father left his land to visit Sedna. His daughter greeted 

 him joyfully, and besought him to take her back home. The father, 

 pitying his daughter, took her in his boat while the birds were out 

 hunting, and they quickly left the country which had brought so 

 much sorrow to Sedna. When the fulmar came home in the evening, 

 and found his wife not there, he was very angry. He called his fel- 

 lows around him, and they all flew away in search of the fugitives. 

 They soon discerned them, and stirred up a great storm. The sea rose 

 in immense waves, that threatened the pair with destruction. In his 

 mortal peril the father determined to offer Sedna up to the birds, and 

 threw her overboard. She clung with a death-hold to the edge of the 

 boat. The cruel father then took a knife and cut off the first joints 

 of her fingers. Falling into the sea, they were changed into seals. 

 Sedna, holding to the boat more tightly, the second finger-joints fell 

 under the sharp knife, and swam around as ground-seals ; when the 

 father cut off the stumps of the fingers, they became whales. 



In the mean time the storm subsided, for the storm-birds thought 

 Sedna was drowned. The father then allowed her to come into the 

 boat again. But she from that time cherished a deadly hatred 

 against him, and swore bitter revenge. After they got ashore, she 

 called up two dogs, and let them eat the feet and hands of her father 

 while he was asleep. Upon this he cursed himself, his daughter, and 

 the dogs which had maimed him, when the earth opened and swal- 

 lowed hut, father, daughter, and dogs. They have since lived in the 

 land of Adliwun, of which Sedna is the mistress. 



The seals, ground-seals, and whales, which grew from Sedna's fingers, 

 increased rapidly, and soon filled all the waters, affording choice food 

 to the Innuit. But Sedna has always hated those people, whom she 

 despised when on the earth, because they hunt and kill the creatures 

 which have arisen from her flesh and blood. Her father, who has to 

 get along by creeping, appears to the dying ; and the wizards often 

 see his- crippled hand seizing and taking away the dead. The dead 

 have to stay a year in Sedna's dismal abode. The two great dogs lie 

 on the threshold, and only move aside to let the dead come in. It is 

 dark and cold inside. No bed of reindeer-skins invites to rest ; but 

 the new-comer has to lie on hard walrus-hides. 



