After all that he felt very well indeed, and seemed hardly to have eaten until now. But that was because he had swallowed a little stalk of grass before he began.
So Atdlarneq slept, and next morning he went back home again. But after having thus nearly gorged himself to death, he never went southward again.
[1] There is a fabulous being in Eskimo folklore supposed to have cheeks of copper, with which he can deliver terrible blows by a side movement of the head. Naughty children are frequently threatened with “Copper-cheeks” as a kind of bogey.
Ángángŭjuk
It is said that Ángángŭjuk’s father was very strong. They had no other neighbours, but lived there three of them all alone. One day when the mother was going to scrape meat from a skin, she let the child play at kayak outside in the passage, near the entrance. And now and again she called to him: “Ángángŭjuk!” And the child would answer from outside.
And once she called in this way, and called again, for there came no answer. And when no answer came again, she left the skin she was scraping, and began to search about. But she could not find the child. And now she began to feel greatly afraid, dreading her husband’s return. And while she stood there feeling great fear of her husband, he came out from behind a rock, dragging a seal behind him.
Then he came forward and said:
“Where is our little son?”