Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/139

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ESKIMO FOLK-TALES
119

"Ho, you man there, give me a piece of that meat!"

But although he shouted as loudly as he could, that giant could not hear him. At last a little sound reached the big man's ears, and then he said:

"Bring me luck, bring me luck!"

And he threw down a little piece of meat on the ground, believing it was one of the dead who thus asked.

But little Kâgssagssuk, who, young as he was, had already some helping spirits, made that little piece of meat to be a big piece, just as the dead can do, and ate as much as he could, and when he could eat no more, there was still so much left that he could hardly drag it away to hide it.

Some time after this, little Kâgssagssuk said to his mother's mother:

"I have by chance become possessed of much meat, and my thoughts will not leave it. I will therefore go out and look to it." So he went off to the place where he had hidden it, and lo! it was not there. And he fell to weeping, and while he stood there weeping, the giant came up.

"What are you weeping for?"

"I cannot find the meat which I had hidden in a store-place here."

"Ho," said the giant, "I took that meat. I thought it had belonged to another one."

And then he said again: "Now let us play together." For he felt kindly towards that boy, and had pity on him.

And they two went off together. When they came to a big stone, the giant said: "Now let us push this stone." And they began pushing at the big stone until they twirled it round. At first, when little Kâgssagssuk tried, he simply fell backwards.

"Now once more. Make haste, make haste, once more. And there again, there is a bigger one."

And at last little Kâgssagssuk ceased to fall over backwards, and was able instead to move the stones and twirl them round. And each time he tried with a larger stone than before, and when he had succeeded with that, a larger one still. And so he kept on. And at last he could make even the biggest stones twirl round in the air, and the stone said "leu-leu-leu-leu" in the air.