INTRODUCTION. 



THE natives of Angmagsalik while away the long winter evenings 

 by telling legends and tales, which are called ukiup nalisata 

 "for shortening the winter with". In these tales they often 

 attach more importance to gesticulation, shouting, and modulation 

 of the voice than to the connection between the different parts 

 of the story. Their dramatic skill is often so great that a spectator 

 can follow the story, even if he understands only a few words of 

 the language. 



The following tales were told in our house in the course of the 

 winter 1884 — 85. They were translated sentence by sentence by the 

 interpreter Johan Petersen, and were then immediately written down 

 by me. When the interpreter did not understand the narrators, the 

 latter were obliged to repeat or explain sentences or words until 

 the meaning was plain. As the narrators naturally got tired of the 

 constant interruptions, it is almost inevitable that the tales should 

 appear in a somewhat shortened form. Besides these involuntary 

 abbreviations, there are also others due to my having left out a 

 number of frequent repetitions of the same scene, as well as the 

 scenes which were described too realistically to be put down on 

 paper. However, in both regards I have retained enough to give 

 some idea of the way in which the natives spin out their tales. 



As will be seen from the comments by Dr. Rink which follow 

 the tales, about a dozen of these can be recognized among those 

 which he has published from the West coast of Greenland ^); but, 

 as even in these there are considerable divergences and fresh mate- 

 rial, and as they all, even more so than those from West Green- 

 land, revolve exclusively within the Eskimo's original circle of 

 ideas, I determined to print the whole collection. 



'^) H. Rink: "Eskimoiske Eventyr og Sagn" 1866, and Supplement to the same 

 1871. — "Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, with a sketch of their habits, 

 religion, language, etc." Edinburgh and London 1875. 



