Stray leaves from strange literature; and, Fantastics and other fancies

by Lafcadio Hearn

[THE BIRD WIFE]

There the Moon becometh old and again young many times, as one that dieth often and is reanimated as often by enchantment; while the Sun moveth in a circle of pallid mists, and setteth not. But when he setteth at last, it is still light; for the dead make red fires in the sky above the icebergs until after many, many dim months he riseth again.

All things there are white, save the black sea and the wan fogs; and yet it is hard to discover where the water ends and the land begins, for that part of the world the gods forgot to finish. The ice-peaks grow and diminish, and shift their range north-ward and southward, and change their aspects grotesquely. There are Faces in the ice that lengthen and broaden; and Forms as of vanished creatures. When it is full moon the innumerable multitude of dogs, that live upon dead fish, howl all together at the roaring sea; and the great bears hearing huddle themselves together on the highest heights of the glaciers, and thence hurl down sharp white crags upon the dogs. Above all, rising into the Red Lights, there is a mountain which has been a fountain of living fire ever since the being of the world; and all the surface of the land about is heaped with monstrous bones. But this is summer in that place; in winter there is no sound but the groaning of the ice, the shrieking of the winds, the gnashing of the teeth of the floes.

Now there are men in those parts, whose houses are huts of snow, lighted by lamps fed with the oil of sea-creatures; and the wild dogs obey them. But they live in fear of the Havstramb, that monster which has the form of an armless man and the green color of ancient ice; they fear the Margige, shaped like a woman, which cries under the ice on which their huts repose; and the goblin Bear whose fangs are icicles; and the Kajarissat, which are the spirits of the icebergs, drawing the kayaks under the black water; and the ghostly ivory-hunter who drives his vapory and voiceless team over ice thinner than the scales of fish; and the white Spectre that lies in wait for those who lose their way by night, having power to destroy all whom he can excite to laughter by weird devices; and the white-eyed deer which must not be pursued. There also is the home of the warlocks, the wizards, the Iliseetsut—creators of the Tupilek.

Now the Tupilek is of all awful things the most awful, of all unutterable things the most unutterable.

For that land is full of bones—the bones of sea monsters and of earth monsters, the skulls and ribs of creatures that perished in eons ere man was born; and there are mountains, there are islands, of these bones. Sometimes great merchants from far southern countries send thither ivory-hunters with sledges and innumerable dogs to risk their lives for those white teeth, those terrific tusks, which protrude from the ice and from the sand, that is not deep enough to cover them. And the Iliseetsut seek out the hugest of these bones, and wrap them in a great whale skin, together with the hearts and the brains of many sea creatures and earth animals; and they utter strange words over them. Then the vast mass quivers and groans and shapes itself into a form more hideous, more enormous, than any form created by the gods; it moves upon many feet; it sees with many eyes; it devours with innumerable teeth; it obeys the will of its creator; it is a Tupilek!

And all things change form in that place—even as the ice shifts its shapes fantastically, as the boundaries of the sand eternally vary, as bone becomes earth and earth seems to become bone. So animals also take human likeness, birds assume human bodies; for there is sorcery in all things there. Thus it came to pass, one day, that a certain ivory-hunter beheld a flock of sea-birds change themselves into women; and creeping cautiously over the white snow—himself being clad in white skins—he came suddenly upon them, and caught hold of the nearest one with a strong hand, while the rest, turning again to birds, flew southward with long weird screams.

Slender was the girl, like a young moon, and as white; and her eyes black and soft, like those of the wild gulls. So the hunter—finding that she struggled not, but only wept—felt pity for her, and, taking her into his warm hut of snow, clothed her in soft skins and fed her with the heart of a great fish. Then, his pity turning to love, she became his wife.

Two years they lived thus together, and he fed her with both fish and flesh, being skillful in the use of the net and the bow; but always while absent he blocked up the door of the hut, lest she might change into a bird again, and so take wing. After she had borne him two children, nevertheless, his fear passed from him, like the memory of a dream; and she followed him to the chase, managing the bow with wonderful skill. But she prevailed upon him that he should not smite the wild gulls.

So they lived and so loved until the children became strong and swift.