GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



rounding camps had poured in to bring me meat and accompany 

 us on our way, there were many sledges about. Such an 

 occasion for improvised musical feasts is greedily seized upon, 

 and each one sings exclusively the drum-son gs w hich he himself 

 has composed. 



Late in the evening, long after my housemates were asleep, 

 I heard creaking footsteps in the frozen snow. A little later 

 the door opened, and when she had carefully convinced herself 

 that everybody else was asleep, old Simigaq entered and sat 

 down by the head of my sleeping-place. It was her intention, 

 she said, to make my sleep light. She wished to prepare my 

 way towards the land of dreams with little sayings and legends ; 

 but first of all she wanted to give me for my journey the advice 

 of an old woman, for she believed that age gives certain powers 

 which one may hand on to the young. She felt herself in debt 

 to me since last we met. I had once saved her and brought 

 her to my home from a bird-mountain, where her not very 

 courteous son-in-law had deposited her for the time being ; now 

 she wanted to pay that debt before I left. If it be true that 

 age gives to old people's words a strength which can be 

 transmitted to the young, old Simigaq was certainly a tre- 

 mendous source of power. Not only was she the oldest woman 

 in the tribe — red-eyed, toothless, baldheaded, crooked with 

 rheumatism, nearly blind, and thus in possession of every scar 

 which a long and hard life leaves — but, in addition to all this, 

 she had now become so ugly and withered that they said she 

 could not sink even if she were thrown into the sea. But in 

 spite of this, the memory of the time when she was young, and 

 her powers were directed to quite different ends, still lived fresh 

 and merry in her consciousness. 



She herself told that she had been the possessor of an extra- 

 ordinarily fair complexion, and of thick hair which, like a water- 

 fall, hung down about her naked body. She was also tall and 

 deep-bosomed, and to all these charms was added a care-free 

 and happy temperament. The men vied with each other in 

 their efforts to win her favours, and her attractiveness resulted 

 in several marriages. At last she had found a haven with a 

 38 



