GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



" Oh, I will run away before the wind," the bear said, " then 

 the dogs cannot scent me." 



Nevertheless, one day things went wrong. The dogs 

 stopped the bear, and the people killed it. 



For many days the woman waited anxiously, for although 

 nobody had told her, she feared that this animal, of which she 

 had now grown fond, had been killed. 



One day when, as usual, she had warned it not to steal, she 

 had blackened one of its sides with soot from her lamp. 



" In this way I shall at least know for certain if it should be 

 killed," she said. 



She now told the people in her camp to drive out and ask 

 in other places whether anyone had killed a bear with soot on 

 one side ; and before long sledges returned and told her that a 

 bear like this had been killed in one of the neighbouring camps. 



The woman sorrowed greatly when she knew that her foster- 

 son was dead. Weeping, she left her house and sat down on 

 the headland outside the camp. As she looked across the 

 endless ice which had previously been the bear's hunting- 

 ground, she sang : 



In vain looks the waiting one, 



In vain cries the sorrowing ; 



Hard is the lot of the woman 



Who must shed tears without comfort ; 



Heavy is the lot of the woman who must survive 



Her only son. 



Bear, bear, 



Will you never return, 



Bear, bear ! 



Days and nights elapsed, and the woman would take no 

 nourishment. Sobbing, she sang her song until the tears 

 stiffened on her cheeks as her body turned to stone. 



One still sees her lifelike form on the headland by the camp. 

 Her mouth is covered with a layer of hardened blubber, for they 

 say that it brings luck to the bear-hunter if, before he goes out, 

 he tries to feed the bear-mother with blubber. And in the 

 quiet winter nights, when the northern light sends its ghostly 

 rays across the heavens, one sees old hunters going towards the 

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