Isigaligarssik Challenge
This story is about a man who had no wife. He wanted to be
like the other men who had the opportunity to go out and hear the wizard. To be
able to hear the wizard one needed to be married. Since Isigaligarssik was
unmarried he had to stay with the old widow and her young daughter. On one occasion
when the men are gone listening to the wizard the widow whispers to
Isigaligarssik that her daughter wants to marry him. He agrees to marry her and
before the men return they are married. They are happy for him. The next time
the wizard called he went to see him and brought his wife. The wizard then took
his wife from him telling him he no longer had a wife. From then on he lived
without a wife going to every calling from the wizard to be told to go home.
Eventually he went in to the wizard and was stabbed by him. He ran home and
placed a dress of his wife on the wound and it healed. He then challenged the
wizard to a shooting match with bows and arrows. He became small so the wizard
would miss him. He then told him to go home for he could not shoot. When the
wizard arrived at home Isigaligarssik shot his bow and killed him.
Bibliography: Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen
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