Traditional Stories
The Man Who Wintered in a Bear's Den
They say this really happened, long, long ago. In one village there lived a man with his wife and children. They were very poor, and he worked as a herdsman for some rich reindeer breeders. The master was very strict, but in spite of that he paid something, and the people managed to get by. They didn't die of hunger, but at the same time they didn't live well.
The man reasoned to himself, "The more I work, the more the master will pay me." So he was rarely home, always out with the herds. One day he went out to pasture the reindeer as usual.
He was out working this day when a terrible storm came up, with very strong winds. The reindeer ran off in different directions. No matter how he chased them he couldn't gather them together, and the wind beat him so hard that at last he fell to the ground, exhausted. He lost consciousness. When he came to, all the reindeer were gone.
"If I go back without the reindeer, the master will kill me," he thought. "And if I die in shame, my wife and children will die, too. BEtter for me to go off into the tundra. Maybe I'll find the reindeer there. At least if I die in the tundra, people will take care of my family."
And off he went.
"Death waits for me," he thought.
But suddenly he fell! It was all dark; he couldn't see anything. "Maybe I fell into a hole," he thought. He looked around , and there he saw a bear! Not only a bear, but a female bear - with a baby! Everyone knows that if a mother bear sees a human near her cub she will rip him to pieces.
"Now she will kill me," he thought. He got ready to die - he lay down and closed his eyes. But then he thought, "Why should I die liek this? I might as well accept it."
He sat calmly.
The mother bear was sleeping. She opened one eye and looked at him. She was still sleeping.
"If I move," he thought, "she will attack." He sat without moving for a long time. At last it for painful and cold.
He opened one eye. He moved one toe.
The bear opened one eye and closed it again.
Then he tried moving his foot.
Again she opened one eye and closed it.
"If she hasn't attacked yet, maybe I can move my foot a little more," he thought.
He moved, and she opened her eyes and gave him a strange look. Was it the look of a friend or an enemy? She looked at him a long time, then turned her head away and lay down to sleep.
"If she hasn't attacked," he thought, "it means maybe I can move my arm."
And so it went. He stayed there in the den for a long time, moving only a very little.
He got very hungry. There was some meat in the corner and it looked really good. But he was scared of the bear.
"Oh, if only I had something to eat!" he thought, looking at the meat.
The bear opened her eye. She looked at him and she looked at the meat. And then she took a piece with her paw and threw it to him!
He took the meat and ate it. Then he sat there longer. He stayed there for several days, living in the bear's den. Then he got a little braver and walked around in his corner. He didn't come close to the bear or the cub.
He started to think, "I have to get out of here somehow. He had with him a teviskhin, made of reindeer antler for beating snow out of fur clothing. If he could put the teviskhin over the top of the hole, he could pull himself out. But to do that he would have to stand on the bear! What to do? He thought and thought and thought!"
Then she opened her eye, got up, and moved right under the hole!
"If she hasn't hurt me and has even given me a piece of meat, it means she is will disposed of me," he thought. "If I haven't died yet, it means death is not fated for me now. Whatever will happen, let it be!" And he got up on the bear's back, got the teviskhin out across the top of the hole, grabbed hold, and jumped out!
The bear looked at him, wrapped herself around the baby, and went back to sleep. He said, "Thank you, bear, that you didn't let me die and you saved me from starving."
He started home, thinking, "If I didn't die here maybe I won't die back in the village either. Let the master do what he likes with me."
He went back to the village. People looked at him in amazement, as if he were a vision. "You were gone so long! Where have you been?"
"The bear saved me," he said, and told the whole story.
In several of our villages they worship the bear as a sacred animal. When people found out that the female bear had saved him, had even fed him, they all respected him. He started to live well.
In the spring, when the Kilvei holiday came, he killed several white reindeer and took them as a gift to the place where the bear lived.
They say of this story that good is paid back with good.
