Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
Yellow vapors gathered about the dimming sun. Ominous shadows took form on the shimmering sea. "I-o-h-h-h iooh! Unhappy sun unhappy, unhappy Annadoah!" Taking fire in the subdued sunlight and descending from heaven like a gentle benediction of feathery flakes of gold over and about the dark, crouched figure, softly . . . very softly . . . the snow began to fall.
To the lee a group of small icebergs passed. They rocked and eddied, and from their glacial sides the light poured in changing colors. "O spirit of the light, carry thy bright message to the eyes of Annadoah, tell her Ootah has loved her for many, many moons." The bergs crashed into one another, and in the impact sank into the sea. Ootah bit his lips. A vague misgiving was cold within his heart.
They disappeared now and then behind the crests of leaping waves, and reappearing moved with the swiftness of birds along the horizon. At the entrance of her tent Annadoah stood, one hand shading her eyes as they pierced the radiant distance. From the mountain passes behind the village echoed the joyous howls of approaching dogs.
The wise woman placed some of the fried walrus meat, or seralatoq the prescribed food for a mother the day her child is born into a stone plate and put it on the floor within reach of Annadoah. Then she melted some snow and placed it by the couch. Slowly approaching the bed she lifted the naked infant. "When thy mother wakes," she muttered, "I shall call upon the spirits.
From her father, one of the brave white men who had died with the Greely party years before at Cape Sabine, Annadoah had inherited a delicacy and beauty more common indeed with the unknown peoples of the south. Her face was fresh and smooth, and of a pale golden hue. Her cheeks were flushed delicately with the soft pink of the lichen flowers that bloom in the rare days of early summer.
While these were unloaded a half-dozen eager natives hastened into their tents and hurriedly brought out their portions of the preciously preserved skins and ivories of the meagre summer hunt. Clamorous, insistent, they presented these to Olafaksoah. They clustered around him so that he could not walk. Ootah watched as the bargaining began. He saw Annadoah clinging near the white trader.
Maisanguaq, looking at the floats which marked the dead animals, called out: "Ootah hath won Annadoah hah-hah-hah! Hah! Ootah hath won Annadoah only to lose her! We shall take Ootah's catch to Annadoah, but Ootah sleeps. Ootah hath gone to taste the water in the country of the dead! Hah-hah!" At that moment Maisanguaq nearly fell from his kayak.
Sinking to her knees, convulsed sobs shaking her, she wrung her hands toward the sun, the eternal maiden Sukh-eh-nukh, the beautiful, the all-desired. "I-o-h-h-h!" she moaned, and her voice sobbed its pathos over the seas. "I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h, Sukh-eh-nukh! I-o-o-h-h, Sukh-eh-nukh! Unhappy sun unhappy sun! I-o-o-h-h-h-h, Annadoah! I-o-o-o-h-h-h-h, Annadoah! Unhappy, unhappy Annadoah!"
Extending her arms over the sea, Annadoah reiterated, after each statement of Ootah's bravery, her plea to Nerrvik that Ootah be given back to her. "Nerrvik! Nerrvik!" she called, "surely thou art kind!
Then, from the shadows in the clouds, the answer came. Truly Ootah was brave, and his heart was marvellously kind; unsurpassed was his skill on the hunt and of every animal did he kill; and great was his love for Annadoah.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking