The man laughed. He said, “The water is just where I like to be.” He said this because he was a good swimmer and there was much rain in his country. He stayed in the water all the time he remained in that country.
Now all this while the man and his wife had really been in the sky. Now they wanted to get down. They started back to the house of a certain woman. She was the spider. The house was her web. The woman put them into a web and began to lower them to the earth. Before they started, the woman said, “If you get caught on anything, jerk backward and forward until the web comes loose.” She thought they might get caught on the edges of the clouds. So the man and his wife reached the earth safely and the web was drawn up into the sky.
THE LOST LIGHT
Eskimo (Port Clarence)
ONCE upon a time, all the people were together in a singing house. While they were dancing the sun disappeared. No one knew where it had gone. Because it was so dark, people could not go hunting and soon their provisions were exhausted. Then they told the women to mend their clothing carefully and to make as many boots as possible. These they put into bags. Then the people set out to search for the sun.
They followed the seacoast. They travelled so far they wore out their boots, so they put on new boots from their bags. Yet it was dark all the time.
After many days they came to a country where were many, many seals and walrus and deer. The language of the people was different from their own. After a while they learned to talk it a little. They asked these people where to find the sun.
These people said that the sun was far off. Before they came to the sun’s country they would come to five places. This was the first place. But in the fourth place beyond there lived a woman who kept both the sun and moon in her house.
So they went on. It was very cold and they ran as fast as they could because it was so cold. Then their food gave out. But they reached a country where there was plenty to eat. Here the people spoke a strange language. After a while they learned to talk it a little. These people told them that at the third place they reached they would find a woman who kept the sun and moon in her house.