The Wolves and the Bear
One day, a young wolf, pregnant with two pups, was preparing the den while her mate was out hunting. A Red Fox, an infamous witch in those parts, crept up behind the wolf mother and killed her with the Red Fox's claws while she was making her preparations. The Red Fox removed the unborn pups and tossed one into the cave a mile away, and the other she threw into a forest near the cave. The Red Fox propped up the wolf mother with sticks to fool her mate when he returned from hunting. When the wolf father returned to their den after hunting all day, he went to greet his mate, nuzzling her affectionately. But once he touched her, she fell sideways, exposing the damage that the Red Fox had done. The Wolf Father reeled back and horror and despair, howling his anguish to the moon and the stars.
The Wolf Father knew instantly who had murdered his beloved mate and set off to find the Red Fox. After searching for several years, he was unable to find the Red Fox and punish her for what the witch had done and returned to his den.
One night, as he was out hunting for food, he stumbled across a young wolf near a cave. The young wolf said his name was Tossed-into-a-cave and asked if the wolf father had any food to spare. The wolf father shared all he had with the young wolf and took him in.
One day, Tossed-in-cave asked his father if he could teach him to fight with claw and tooth. The father asked why he would like to be trained. Tossed-into-cave replied that he wished to show his friend the ways of survival. The wolf father asked why his friend could not join them at their den, but Tossed-into-cave said he was unable to leave the cover of the forest.
The wolf father gathered his tools and went with Tossed-in-cave to the forest. They found Tossed-into-cave's friend, who said his name was Tossed-into-forest. He said he could not leave for the guard tree would not let him leave. The Wolf Father retrieved the tools he had brought, and cut down the tree, freeing Tossed-in-forest from the forest.
One day, the wolf father told the two pups not to go to the glacier, "There is a great terror that dwells there" he said. The two pups traveled to the glacier the next day. They stumbled across a large polar bear, the size of a humpback whale. The Bear lunged forward and swallowed the two pups whole. Once inside, the pups noticed other animals who had also been swallowed by the Bear.
Determined to save the other animals, the pups searched the inside of the bear for signs of weakness. They crawled to the rear end of the bear and Tossed-in-forest poked the bladder of the bear asking what it was. The bear responded that it was for removing his troubles. Next, they walked to the middle part of the bear and poked his lungs, again inquiring what it was. The Bear responded that it fueled his life and made him one with the air. Tossed-into-cave cut out the bear's lungs and he lost his connection with air and died soon after. The pup's made their escape out the bears rectum with a portion of the bear lung, saving those animals who were still alive.
The pups returned to the Wolf Father and gave him to piece of lung. The father scolded them for disobeying him. The pups decided to visit their mother's grave, which was between the cave and the forest. They talked to their mother, telling her that the den was in poor condition. The Wolf Mother stirred slightly. Then the pups told her that the food was spoiling in the den. The Wolf Mother shifted and sat up in the grave. The pups insisted that the water collected had gone foul, and the Wolf Mother rose to her feet, her fur had fallen out in places. She said she had been asleep for far too long, and there is much see to in the den.
The pups and the Wolf Mother returned to the den, and the wolf father rejoiced at the return of his mate. The four lived happily ever after in their den.
Author's Note:
This story was an incredible read for me and provided a great deal of material for me to use in my story. I chose to change the original human characters with animals to add a different take on the story, but I kept the main story line the same. The original story begins with a pregnant woman with twin boys being horribly killed by a witch who threw the two boys into a spring and one behind a curtain, which gave them the names of thrown-behind-curtain and thrown-in-spring. The father found his children in the original story through different circumstances. The rest of the story is about how the children disobey the council of the father and go off to defeat the evil terrors of the land. The story about the two pups being swallowed by the bear was inspired by the original story, where the two boys where inhaled by a huge alligator and had to cut out his heart to escape. The resurrection of the mother was also a part in the original story. The boys shouted different things that were wrong with the state of her possessions, which somehow woke up the mother and returned her to them. I chose to add a happily ever after ending to wrap things up, where the original story ended on a note of just defeating a final evil in the land.
Sources:
This story is part of the Native American Hero Tales unit. Story source: Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929). Heroes: Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away.