week 13 story: Little Cub

Polar bear on ice

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Little Cub

There was a northern tribe in which resided a man and his wife. The woman was carrying the man’s child and they could not have been happier, for all was right in the world. The night of the birth there were some complications. A little girl came into this world without a mother and the man gained a daughter at the cost of his wife. The man held his daughter within his arms and cried, tears of sorrow and tears of joy, but bitter all the same. It had always been his and his wife’s dream to have a child and raise that child, that little cub of theirs. The man was scared, but knew it was up to him to see this dream of theirs through.

The man had no clue on how to raise a daughter. He knew how to hunt and provide, but he was useless when it came to cleaning the animals and cooking them into a nutritious meal. He had his sister help him with everything that he could not do, but it was still his daughter, his little cub, and he tried his best to teach her everything that he could. He taught her how to start a fire and taught her as best he could to cook, but the food was never good. He taught her how to shoot a bow and the basics of hunting. He taught her how to track animals and how to stay down wind, so they don’t catch scent of you. He taught her all of these skills because those are the things that he knew how to do. He was surprised when she wanted to join them on the hunt, for he was only teaching her these skills so they could spend time with one another. He told her that venturing far outside of the campgrounds on a hunt can be very dangerous and she was not to do it. He knew death on these hunts was not uncommon and he could not bear to lose his daughter, his little cub.

It was the midst of winter and food reserves were running low. The man and a group of his fellow tribesmen set out to find food. The weather was harsh and the snow unrelenting. It had been days and there was no sign of the group of hunters returning. The daughter waited impatiently day after day, hoping to see their return. After what felt like an eternity, the hunting part returned. Overtaken by joy, the daughter sprinted through the heavy snow to go and meet them. She happily greeted them, but not a one responded, not a one returned eye contact with her, not a one could bear to look at her. She slowly caught on to this and frantically looked around hurriedly for her dad. She finally caught sight of her uncle, tears rolling down his face, and she knew. He embraced her and they both just cried.

The next day, the uncle told her what had happened. He explained to her how they were attacked by a giant polar bear. They were able to kill it, but not without loss… The uncle told her how this bear had a cub and they were able to capture it. He showed the cub to the girl and said that she could take her aggression out on it. The girl was quick to refuse, for she had a gentle spirit. With tears rolling down her face, still distraught about her father, she asked her uncle if she could keep the bear cub. With a smile on his face, he told her sure and that cub was all hers. He had hoped that this bear would help keep her mind off of things.

This small bear cub of hers was the only thing that gave the little girl any sort of joy anymore. She was her father’s little cub, and now she has a little cub of her own. It did not make the pain go away, but it made it a little more bearable. She loved this little cub of hers like it was family and brought it with her everywhere she went. She would ask for an extra bowl of stew so she could feed it to the bear. Her aunt was even kind enough to make clothes for the bear, so the little girl and her cub could have matching outfits. The pain was still there, but just like her uncle had hoped, the bear had done an excellent job at keeping her mind off of things.

All throughout her adolescence she had her little cub with her. This little cub of hers was her only friend, for nobody wanted to associate with the bear girl. They would all make fun of her and she would always threaten them with her bear, but they always just laughed at these threats, never taking her seriously. She was content with her only friend being her little cub, but she would not mind having a human friend, maybe just one person who understood her.

One day, the girl was approached by one of the few boys that had never made fun of her. He asked her about her bear and why she was so attached to it. She was hesitant, but eventually told him the story of her dad and how she got her little cub. The boy asked if she knew that the bear was not real. She sighed and with a tear in her eye she replied yes, but reality is sad. He extended his hand to her and told her that it does not have to be. Fighting back tears, she grabbed his hand and acknowledged that she was probably too old to be playing with toys. She admitted that she needs to stop holding onto the past and that it is time to move forward. Unable to hold back the tears back anymore she cried, both tears of sorrow and tears of joy, but they were bitter all the same.

Authors note: This story was inspired by the story The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son. The original story was about a lonely old lady who was given an actual bear cub. The cub got bigger and bigger, until it began to go out hunting with the tribe. The old lady eventually had to get rid of the bear because it killed a man who attacked it. She got rid of him because she knew that others would come for her bear and that he would be a sitting duck if he stayed with her. Her getting rid of her bear made me think of a child having to give up their toys. Because of this thought, I decided to make the old lady a child and the bear a simple stuffed animal. I still wanted the bear to seem real though, for that is how we see them when we are young. I knew that this was the general ending I was going for, so I decided to try my hand at writing a sad story that would accent the ending well. I made it so she was a lonely little girl, with nothing in the world except for her bear. I think that aspect of the story paralleled the original well, but I completely deviated beyond that.

Story source: Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).