Every time a moonbeam had hit Quadjaq he had felt himself growing. His feet began first and became enormously large, and when the Man left him, he found himself a good-sized man.
In the morning he waited for the bears, and three bears did really come, growling and looking so fierce that the men of the village ran into their huts and shut the doors. But Quadjaq put on his boots and ran down to the ice where the bears were. The men peering out through the window holes said, "Can that be Quadjaq? The bears will soon eat the foolish fellow."
But he seized the first one by its hind legs and smashed its head on an iceberg near which it was standing. The next one fared no better. But the third one he took in his arms and carried it up to the village and let it eat some of his persecutors.
"That is for abusing me!" he cried. "That is for ill-treating me!"
Those that he did not kill ran away never to return. Only a few who had been kind to him when he was a poor skinny boy were spared. Among them, of course, was the girl who had given him the knife, and she became his wife.
XI
THE GUEST
An old hag lived in a house with her grandson. She was a very bad woman who thought of nothing but playing mischief. She was a witch and tried to harm everybody with witchcraft.