Qimmikussualuk

There was once a man who had a giant dog; it could swim in the sea, and was so big that it could drag whales and narwhals to land. The narwhals it just hung on its grinders, when it wanted to swim to land with them. The man who owned it had cut holes in its jaws and fastened thongs to the holes, so he just pulled at these thongs when he wanted it to turn.

When they wished to go on a journey, he and his wife sat on its back. The man had long wished for a son, but as he could not get one, he gave his dog the amulet that the child should have had. It was a knot of wood from a tree, and it was to make the dog hard against death.

Then one day the dog ate a person, so the man had to go away and settle down elsewhere. One day while he was living in that place a kayak came in sight a long way off, and the man had to make haste and hide his dog, so that it should not eat the stranger. He led it a long way up in the hills, and gave it a large bone that it could gnaw and amuse itself with.

But one day the dog smelt the stranger, all the same, and came down from the hills; and its master then had to hide the man and his kayak far away, so that the dog should not tear them to pieces; so dangerous was it.

But as it was so large and so ferocious, its master made many enemies, and one day there came a strange man in a sledge with three dogs as large as bears, to kill the giant dog. The man went to meet the sledge with the dog after him. At first the dog pretended to be afraid, and only when the strange dogs lunged for it did it fling itself upon them and bite through the skulls of all three.

At last the man noticed that the giant dog used to disappear occasionally on long excursions inland, and sometimes it came back with the leg of an inland-dweller. Then he understood that it attacked the inland-dwellers, and brought its master their legs. That they were the legs of inland-dwellers he could tell by their having boots on with long hairs.

From this giant dog dates the great terror that the inland-dwellers have of dogs. It always used to show itself suddenly in the opening of the window and haul them out. But it was a very good thing for the inland-dwellers to get a little fright sometimes, for they were very much given to carrying off people who were alone, especially women who had lost their way in the fog.

Now I do not know any more about the giant dog.