Based primarily on explorer and anthropologist Knud Rasmussen’s transcriptions of oral tales, the stories in this anthology of old Greenlandic myths and legends have been passed down through generations. This collection features stories about children and young people—stories that were told in the depths of winter, that the youngest listeners would one day tell to their own children.
Talking animals, flying shamans, orphans so poor they have to walk barefoot through the snow, and men so strong they can carry a whale all on their own: you’ll meet all of them and more in this collection.
From: Kamikinnaq and the Giants
As time went by, Kamikinnaq realised that he had started to grow. He grew and he grew, and he was soon as big as his foster father.
One day his foster father asked him whether he had family elsewhere.
Then Kamikinnaq told him that his parents lived at Noorsiit.
“Don’t you want to visit them?” his foster father asked him.
Kamikinnaq realised that his anger towards his parents had disappeared because he had grown and found a new place to live, so he decided to visit them again.
He got into the big kayak he now had and paddled and paddled. When he reached his old settlement, he was so big that he could effortlessly put his hand on top of the big headland.
The people got very scared when they saw the giant in the big kayak. They didn’t recognise Kamikinnaq and asked who he was.
“I’m Kamikinnaq, the boy you used to call a little wimp.”
Then he went ashore and up to his parents’ tent. He had grown so tall that he didn’t fit inside the tent, and in order to talk to his parents, he had to scoop them up in the palm of his hand.
Afterwards, he went hunting to get plenty of food for his parents, who had grown very old while he had been away.
He paddled far out into the open sea and caught a lot of harp seals, which he put in his kayak. If they wiggled too much, he would grab them by the back flippers and bash their heads against each other, killing them.
It wasn’t until he had caught enough seals so that his parents would have food for many, many years that he got ready to travel back to Akilineq.