TALES TOLD BY THE ESKIMO 57 



was his son, playing in the garden. The little boy 

 ran into the house, crying, &quot; Mother ! Father is 

 here, and is coming to our hut ! &quot; to which the 

 mother replied, &quot;Go on with your play ; your 

 father is far off, and cannot find us.&quot; No sooner 

 were the words spoken than Itit entered and glared 

 fiercely round the room, while the frightened woman 

 quickly opened a box from which there flew a 

 cloud of feathers. These stuck to the woman, her 

 son, and the new husband, and before Itit could 

 carry out his revenge, the hut suddenly disappeared, 

 and his enemies, immediately transformed into 

 geese, flew rapidly away until they became mere 

 specks in the distance. 



Among our own boys and girls, stories of Father 

 Neptune, who lives on the bed of the ocean and 

 rules the waves, are very common. The Eskimo, 

 too, have traditions of &quot; Kalopaling,&quot; who seems 

 to be very much like the &quot; Old Man of the Sea,&quot; 

 mentioned in stories of Sinbad the Sailor. To the 

 Eskimo, Kalopaling is a dreadful monster of human 

 form, covered with feathers of the eider duck, and 

 so large is the hood of his cloak that it will easily 

 contain a kayak and the fisherman who sculls 

 it. This hood is said to be filled with Eskimo 

 fishermen who have either been drowned by 

 accident or captured by the dreaded Kalopaling, 

 who, although unable to speak, can make a long 

 wailing cry of &quot; bee-bee-bee.&quot; The feet of this 

 creature are very large, and appear like sealskin 

 floats, or the water wings which boys use when 

 learning to swim. 



