The Woman Magician

To be fair, this looks like a difficult place to hunt.

Salutations, reader! This week's story comes to us from the Inuit people of North America. The Woman Magician is a story of betrayal and magic. Click the link to read it, and continue below to analyze it.

Wow. I can't be sure, but it seems like the Exaluq could have just asked the Quern if they would share their meat. Since they hunted together all the time and made a community, including some intermarrying, it's likely the Quern would have helped them, at least as much as they could. But, we don't know if that would have worked because the Exaluq decided it was a better idea to kill all of the Quern men. Rude.

I also have to wonder at the one Exaluq man who went home to his Quern wife that night. He didn't say a word to her about what had happened, and he also thought he'd be safe sleeping next to her. I really wonder what was going on in his head. Was he conflicted about all of this? Did he think it was his due? We're not given any answers, just his murder.

All of that being said, the main characters of this story are the murderous little boy and the old woman with magic. It's interesting because usually the protagonist of a fairy tale or legend is a young man or young woman looking for adventure and/or a spouse. But both of these main characters are a little uncanny. The little boy can hear the dead, and the old woman can use magic. Which is also kind of unusual, and makes this story more interesting, at least to me.

What happened to the Quern is actually quite terrible and worse than it first appears. They had to leave their home in the middle of the night to protect themselves, without taking much of anything. The men who murdered so many of their group run after them, and the old woman saves them by cutting the ice and making it impossible for the Exaluq to follow them. So, now the Quern are stranded somewhere far from home, on the inhospitable ice, and all of their hunters are dead. I like happy endings, so I like to think the old woman was able to provide for them with her magic until they could take care of themselves without magic.

The moral of this story is that you won't get away with mass murder. If no one else was a witness, the dead will find someone to talk to. Alternatively, don't be violent jerks and maybe things will work out for you.

Have a different moral? Wonder if the Quern hunters really were messing up the Exaluq hunters? Have a story you want me to talk about? Comment below!