To my surprise, Thor seemed to hear the Wolf. “Not unless there is no one left to worship us.”
Odin nodded. “That is the only way to kill a god.”
You told the tale to your child. Singarti’s nose painted a stripe of wet on my daughter’s cheek. In her we are reborn.
“She is Norse and Inuk both,” Frey added. “She allows us to stay. From now on, when your people pray to Raven or Wolf, we, too, will listen. And when they call upon Sanna, Loki will hear them as well.”
“Loki?” I hadn’t dared ask about him, but his familiar slanting grin was nowhere to be seen among the crowd of Aesir.
Beautiful Freya sighed. “That sad little sea girl was so lonely. And Loki had promised to be her companion, after all.” A knowing smile flickered across her lips. “It was the least I could do, after what we did to her.”
“Sanna?” I asked, dumbfounded. “And Loki?”
“You wove us all back into existence with your tale,” Frigg explained. “The Trickster, too. Sanna seemed to think he was her old lover and demanded he go with her beneath the waves. He could not refuse.”
I smiled grimly, imagining Loki beneath Sanna’s unrelenting gaze, forced to soothe and service her for eternity.
“It is for the best.” Odin’s one eye was stern. “He will not trick us again.”
“So…,” I ventured, “if Sanna and all the spirits of the animals are still alive…” Hope tightened my breath. “My wolfdogs? Are they here, too?”
“They are not immortal,” Frey said gently. “Not like us.”
“So they are gone, then…”
“Not entirely. Their wolf forms were destroyed, but they were beings of great power, sent by Singarti himself to guard you. You may see them again.”
I turned back to the frozen sea, searching for the glint of narwhal horn thrusting through the ice. I wished I still had an angakkuq’s eyes.
“And my magic?” I ventured.
Singarti whimpered and licked my hand. His ears lay flat and his tail tucked. That alone answered my question, but Frey continued, smiling sadly. “My child, never again will you journey to the spirit world. You have brought us back to a place of peace, and for this we owe you much. But you did, after all, help Loki raise an army against us. And you overthrew your own Moon—sent him scampering across the sky with his tail between his legs. You reminded us all of the dangers of letting mortals play with such power. We cannot take such a risk again. Our worlds are better off apart.”
“Still, we thank you,” interjected Frigg. She stepped close, and I let her move the blanket away from my daughter’s face. The goddess placed one long finger on my baby’s cheek, and for a moment the eyes of infant and goddess met. “You and your babe have saved us. Even now, the Christ approaches our last strongholds. A god without women or sex.” She shuddered.
“Or fighting and feasting,” added Thor. “A desert god with no understanding of the ice, the animals, the sea.”
Odin gestured to the south. “We will walk to Vinland. To live among the forests and meadows of a new world, just as Galinn wished.” He leaned on a long, slate-pointed spear. “Even now, Freydis Eriksdottir tells her people of the Ragnarok—of the great battle fought on your shores. The skalds will sing of it for an age. To them, this land is doomed—the burial ground of the gods. No Norseman will ever dare sail past here again, not even to reach Vinland.” His voice was heavy with sorrow. Regret. Saving the Aesir meant losing the people who’d worshiped them for so long. It could not have been an easy choice. “If the Norse stay away,” he went on, “the Christ will as well. We will be safe.”
“And we have met our end with our weapons in our hands.” Thor puffed out his broad chest. “Rather than wilting away through the neglect of an ungrateful people.”
“That was Loki’s doing,” I couldn’t help mentioning. “He brought the battle that let you die a glorious death.”
Frigg nodded. “The Trickster sought to destroy us. He helped create us anew instead.”
Singarti padded toward the gods who had once been the Aesir. Caribou stamped his hoof.
Freya pressed her lips briefly upon my daughter’s brow before rejoining the others. Spirit and god stood arrayed before me—tall and beautiful, proud and strong. I knew this was the last time I would see them.
I held up my daughter so she, too, could witness this great assembly of the gods she’d helped to save.
I expected them to turn and disappear into the snow. But before they left, Odin turned his single gray eye on me. “One more thing, Inuk. For bringing us back, for weaving us together, for bearing the child who will protect our future—we owe you. What would you have of us? Whatever is in our power to grant you, we will.”
I took a step backward from his piercing stare and turned to look at the other gods. In each of their faces, I saw a silent question. Would I ask for my child to grow strong and live long? wondered Frigg. Would I ask for wisdom and farsightedness? wondered Odin. Would I ask that my wolf pack run at my side once more? wondered Singarti. Would I ask for Brandr returned safe to my arms? wondered Freya.
But I have always been proud.
I would make my way in this world without their aid.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t ask something for my people. “Do not go south. Stay here, with us. Always.”
Odin’s eye widened. Thor grumbled his disbelief. Singarti whimpered.
I stayed firm. “The Norse will not come back—but others may. Brandr told me of many worlds across the ocean. Great villages of stone, where men drink the spoiled juice of grapes. Desert lands of searing sand. Islands of trees and blue-painted men. I saw the pelts the Norse piled on board their ships—so many that even the greatest caribou herds might never recover. If these other strangers come to my shores, they will slaughter seal and whale, fox and bear, with equal abandon. Without animals, there is no Singarti, no Uqsuralik.”
Thor scowled. “And what would you have us do about that?”
I looked to Singarti, silently asking his permission before I said more. He stared back for a long moment before opening his mouth in a wolfish smile of agreement.
“If you stay,” I said to Odin, “you can weave your strength with ours. Your own people may forget the spirits of ice and snow, or wolf and raven, but mine will not. We are stronger together.”
“You ask for much,” Odin said.
“I have given you much,” I returned, refusing to quail before him.
Odin’s gray eye glazed suddenly. He looked beyond me, beyond the tundra, all the way to the future. “We will do as you ask, child.”
Thor rumbled. Freya gasped. But none dared defy the All-Father.
“We will stay,” he continued, his face still slack in the trance’s power. “We will work with Sanna and Singarti and all the others to help defend you. And this time, we will be more vigilant. We will divert the ships from your shores, we will keep the sea frozen, we will hide you among the icebergs. For five hundred years, we will keep the strangers from your land.”
“And then?” I dared ask.
“For five hundred years more, you will remember the Aesir, though you may call us by different names. You will remember Singarti and Uqsuralik. And the strangers that come will not stay long. The land will remain yours. After that…” He shrugged, his eye sharp once more. “Well, after that, I can promise you nothing. You will have to guard the wolves and the whales yourself.”
Odin turned abruptly away. Singarti lifted his tail in a final salute, then bounded ahead of the Aesir. The Wolf led the gods west, toward the mountains and valleys of my home. Before they’d taken more than a dozen steps, the gods disappeared into the whirling snow. All but Frey and Freya, who stood just within sight, their golden hair like bursts of sun amid the clouds.
A sharp caw drew my gaze to the sky. Qangatauq the Raven shouting a last farewell. He tilted his wings and circled lower, close enough for me to catch a rainbow glint in his black eye.
Loki, I remembe
red, always escaped his chains.
Qangatauq, or Loki, or some being that was now both at once, cawed again in joyous bird laughter before he winged away into the white.
As I turned back to my iglu, I noticed a splash of color in the icy world at my feet. A patch of yellow flowers that hadn’t been there a moment before. Flowers that shouldn’t bloom until the Moon When Animals Give Birth.
Poppies.
Some lay loose on the snow. As if they’d fallen from a woman’s hair.
Some sprang forth from the earth, their narrow green shoots thrusting through the snow, their bright petals fluttering in the stiff wind.
I looked up, toward Frey and Freya. The god of growing things and the goddess of love.
But they, too, were gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
One should never underestimate the gods.
I had not asked for it. Could barely dream it. But Freya and Frey sent him back to me nonetheless.
My daughter could already walk. She had learned to call me Ataata when I taught her to hunt, and Anaana when I removed her tiny boots and warmed her feet in my hands.
I let Puja teach her how to sew.
She and Little Kiasik were not the only children in our camp anymore. When she was just out of my hood, five long sleds appeared on the horizon. Hunters bringing food and laughter and families, rather than fear. Other Inuit would come soon, they promised, when they heard of our rich hunting grounds. Now a dozen tents crowded our summer camp.
Life, as Ataata always said, attracts life.
In the warm summer days of Caribou Shedding Moon, I sat my daughter between my legs and we paddled my kayak along the shore, looking for seabirds and seals. As we went, I told her of the great spirits of our world—both old and new—that watched over us still. But I told her, too, that the world was ours to live in, ours to enjoy. I knew her father would have wanted her to know that.
The water was calm, the Sun high. We grew drowsy on our journey, lulled by the gentle rocking motion of Sanna’s breast.
“Look, Ataata!” she said, pointing to shore.
“Sharp eyes! It’s a wolf!” But not just any wolf.
A Wolf with a coat so white it hurt my eyes. A Wolf as tall as a man. One I’d never expected to see again. He pricked up his ears and lowered his tail. I remembered enough of his tongue to understand his meaning: Listen.
Note by note, a song danced across the waves from far out at sea—from a place no songbird should fly.
With a deft stroke of my paddle, I turned the kayak eastward.
A speck of white, as bright as Singarti’s flank, glistened on the water. As it approached, it took the form of a small square sail flying proudly before a wooden boat just large enough to carry one man.
I did not wait for it to come to me. With my daughter’s warm body pressed against mine and her laughter twining with the whistled melody, I went to meet it.
He must have seen me coming, for the song stopped, and the white sail soon fluttered loose. An anchor splashed overboard, and the boat came to a rocking halt just as my kayak pulled alongside.
Brandr’s smile gleamed down at me, then faded quickly when he saw the little girl in my lap. My daughter grinned guilelessly up at him, ready for adventure, unafraid of any stranger.
I lifted her free of the kayak and held her up to him. Before he could protest, she was in his arms. With her small face close to his, he couldn’t fail to recognize her straight nose or the gentle curl of her black hair.
“What’s your name?” he asked the child huskily. She didn’t understand him, of course, not when he spoke in Norse. She merely grabbed on to his orange beard and laughed delightedly at this strange new plaything.
“Her name is Nona, for she carries my mother’s spirit in her breast. But I call her Aktut. It means ‘knife.’”
“A sharp name for one so soft.”
“You gave me this,” I said, holding aloft the small sharp blade I always wore at my waist, “and you gave me her. Two things I didn’t know I needed until I had them.”
“Aren’t you going to come on board?” he asked finally, reaching out his hand to me.
My fingertips brushed his. A promise.
“And miss the joy of racing you to shore?”
I paddled as hard as I ever had. The sun glinted off the sea swells, bringing tears to my already brimming eyes. My smile stretched as wide as my daughter’s as I heard the luff of the sail behind me and knew that Brandr followed behind, Aktut safe in his arms.
Here ends this tale.
GLOSSARY
Inuktitut Words
* A note on spelling: For most nouns, I have used modern Inuktitut spellings of the South Qikiqtaaluk dialect. Some character names, such as Omat and Saartok, use older spellings.
A’aa: an exclamation of pain
Aarluk: killer whale
Agliruti (pl. aglirutiit): taboo
Aii: an exclamation of surprise
Anaana: mother
Angakkuq (pl. angakkuit): shaman
Aqsarniit: the Northern Lights
Alianait: an exclamation of pleasure
Ataata: father
Atigi: a man’s garment, worn alone in summer or beneath a parka in winter, with the fur facing inside
Hnnnn: an expression of assent
Ia’a: an exclamation of fear
Iglu (pl. igluit): igloo, a temporary house made from snow blocks
Ilisuilttuq: Stupid One, literally “one who does not learn”
Inuk (pl. Inuit): a real human
Inuksuk (pl. inuksuit): large stones piled to resemble the figure of a standing man
Kayak: a slim, closed one-man boat (from the Inuktitut qajaq)
Maktak: edible skin of the bowhead whale
Nuqqarit: Stop!
Qaggiq: large ceremonial iglu built for special gatherings
Qarmaq (pl. qarmait): a permanent, semisubterranean house made from whale bones and skins, insulated with sod
Qiviut: wool shed from the undercoat of the musk ox
Tapvauvutit: goodbye, literally “here you are”
Uiluaqtaq: in Alaskan legend, a woman who lives without men and hunts for herself
Ulu: a crescent-shaped knife used by women
Umiaq: a large, open boat used for whale hunting or for group transportation
Great Spirits of the Inuit
Malina: the Sun Woman, sister to Taqqiq (Modern Inuit generally name the Sun Woman Siqiniq. In the eighteenth century, however, some West Greenland Inuit used Malina, from the root meaning “following.”)
Qangatauq: the Raven Spirit, “One Who Hops”
Sanna: Sea Mother, Great Woman who guards the animals beneath the sea
Sila: Air, Weather, and Sky
Singarti: the Wolf Spirit, “One Who Pierces”
Taqqiq: the Moon Man, brother to Malina
Uqsuralik: the Ice Bear (Polar Bear) Spirit, “The Fatty One”
Inuit Calendar
January/February: Moon of the Sun’s Rising
February/March: Moon for Bleaching Skins
March/April: Seal Birthing Moon/Whaling Moon
April/May: Moon When Rivers Flow
May/June: Moon When Animals Give Birth
June/July: Egg Gathering Moon
July/August: Caribou Shedding Moon
August/September: Moon When Birds Fly South
September/October: Antler Peeling Moon
October/November: Moon When Winter Begins
November/December: Moon of the Setting Sun
December/January: Moon of Great Darkness
Old Norse Words and Places
Althing: council of freemen
Ambatt: concubine
Englaland: “Angles’ Land,” present-day southeast Scotland
Freydisbudir: “Freydis’s Booths” or “Freydis’s Houses”
Helluland: “Land of Flat Stones,” present-day Baffin Island in Nunavut
Írland: present-day Ireland
/> Jotunheim: mythological realm of the Frost Giants
Knarr: deep-bottomed merchant ship
Kunta: vagina
Leifsbudir: “Leif’s Booths” or “Leif’s Houses”
Markland: “Land of Forests,” present-day Labrador
Northway: present-day Norway
Ragnarok: the “Fate of the Gods,” the final battle prophesied between the Aesir and the Jotuns
Rus: present-day Russia
Skald: poet, bard, or storyteller
Skít: shit
Skraeling: barbarian, wretch (used in the sagas to describe the indigenous peoples of North America)
Skyr: a yogurt drink
Thrall: slave
Valhalla: Odin’s hall, where those who die bravely in battle enjoy endless feasting
Vinland: “Land of Wine,” present-day Newfoundland
Norse Gods and Monsters
*A note on spelling: For simplicity, I have used Anglicized spellings rather than the more accurate (and less familiar) Old Norse transliterations. For example, Freya rather than Freja and Baldur rather than Baldr.
Aesir: the ruling family of Norse gods, including Odin, Thor, Frigg, and others
Baldur: bright god of life and beauty, son of Odin and Frigg, killed through Loki’s trickery
Fenrir: a monstrous wolf, child of Loki
Frey: god of growing things, Freya’s brother
Freya: goddess of love and beauty, Frey’s sister
Frigg: goddess of magic and destiny, Odin’s wife, Baldur’s mother, and Thor’s foster mother
Garm: the hound of Hel
Heimdall: the Watcher of the Gods who carries a horn to warn of the Ragnarok’s approach
Hel: goddess of death, daughter of Loki
Hod: blind brother of Baldur
Jormungand: the serpent or sea beast that encircles the world
Jotun: a Frost Giant, mortal enemy of the Aesir
Loki: trickster, shapeshifter, who was born a Jotun but lives with the Aesir
The Wolf in the Whale Page 49