Labrador Sea by Philippe Jamet on Google Maps
I remember when Sedna sent us the pale beasts.
“Why’d she do that,” Yuta clawed at Ahnah.
Ahnah shrugged.
“But you’re the wise woman, you ought to know.”
“Wise woman I might be, but I’m not Sedna to be in her head.”
The pale beasts confused us. They were not food, they provided no skins; what use had they? Yuta and Kallik wanted to kill them but Ahnah said no, to leave them alone and they’d go away.
Ahnah said true. After three sun-seasons the pale beasts disappeared into the sea and haven’t returned to this day.
97 words, written for What Pegman Saw: Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada
BTW, in case you’ve not caught it, the pale beasts were Norse from Greenland
crispina kemp 
The pale beasts! Great evocation.
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Apparently, that’s what the recorded account translates as. And I can easily see it would be so.
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‘Pale beasts’ they must have seemed too, pillaging and tearing the world apart. Love the voices here, your characters speech patterns convince 🙂
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To be fair, while the Vikings pillaged etc, the general Norseman didn’t. The one wanted riches, the other merely wanted fertile land, for their children to survive.
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And who can blame them for wanting that 🙂
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The Norse and Danes are much maligned by being lumped altogether with Vikings. And the Vikings were of mixed origin: Danes, Norse, Slavs and Balts, not to forget Dutch, German, English, Scots, and Irish. While the crews tended to comprise a genetically related family, their fleets were mixed.
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Agree with Josh!
And I love your Inuit take.
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Thank you. Actually, the story of Sedna has long fascinated me, and I was tempted to go with it. But… this won out
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You brought her in anyway 😉
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Yea. She’s the goddess of the sea. She populated it with seals and things … her fingers that her father cut off. It’s quite a brutal story.
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Goddesses sometimes have to pay big prices.
And the gods are so bloody brutal!
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You’re got it. 🙂
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I hadn’t caught it so I am happy you gave me a heads up. Brilliantly written piece. I have uses Sedna in poetry before. So she I was familiar with.
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Happy to recieve your approval. Yea, as sea goddesses go, I think she’s had a lot of press over recent years. Unlike last week’s Kianda.
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Great take on the photo Crispina 🙂
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I thank you, Jen.
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You’re always welcome! I learn something new every time I read your posts 🙂
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I liked that one. Reminds me of Scott O’Dells’ book “Island of the Blue Dolphins”.
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I thank you. 🙂
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Are the pale beasts icebergs?
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No. The Norse from Greenland.
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Ahhh, that makes more sense
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I’d read that’s what they called the Norseman … although that’s only in translation
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I thank you for the hint, because I had completely misunderstood and thought that Sedna was a person who brought them some sort of animal. But now I see that Sedna is the goddess of the sea, and it makes so much more sense that they are Norse in ships!
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I should have appended an explanation.
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This way people are rewarded for reading the other comments. 🙂
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Indeed. It pleases that people do. I admit I only do that with comments already in place.
🙂
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And here I thought Sedna was just a dwarf planet, worshiped by very far-sighted humans. 😉
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Well, she might be that as well. After all, look how many things Pluto is.
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Good, subtle story. Ahnah was wise to wait rather than attack the Norsemen.
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A pacifist, that’s often the best way
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