Reading Notes: Hero Tales, Part B

Main characters:

Secondary characters:

Important things to remember:

A man named Aioswe had 2 wives, and found marks one one of his wives and he assumed his son was intimate with his unnatural mother
He took his son to an island to hunt for eggs, but then paddled off and left him confused and alone
A Walrus found the sad son crying and agreed to take him back to the mainland on his back
The Walrus told the son to warn him if he heard thunder, and the boy agreed, but lied when thunder came and said it was not thunder
More thunder came on the ride and the Walrus dropped the son in the water, which was now shallow, but lightning killed the Walrus
The lightning was conjured by Aioswe
On shore, an old woman sent by the son's mother told him of the dangers he would encounter headed home, and gave him a winter coat to protect him

On his journey home, the son came across two blind old witches, who had sharp elbows that were like knives
His father had conjured the witches and were meant to kill him
They invited him inside their hut and he placed parchment in between them and they began to stab it thinking it was him
They ended up stabbing and killing each other
He came upon a group of people and big dogs, that wanted to kill him as well
He dug a tunnel underneath them to pass, but when he got to the end he rattled bones
They came after him because the dogs barked at the sound of the bones, but he popped the weasel winter coat up through the hole and the people killed the dogs for lying
The son set the world on fire, by shooting arrows into the water and forest
It burned up his father and he turned himself and his mother into birds to escape

Birds flying away from the burning forest, via sciencealert

Story from: Native American Hero Tales, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-native-american_10.html

MYTHOLOGY & FOLKLORE BLOG, SPRING 2021