The Magic Bear
Tell me a story...
Once there lived an old couple who did not have any children. The woman was thin and wrinkled, yet this couple still hoped to have a child somehow. One day, after he had killed an ice-bear, the old man took some of the blood and passed his hands over it, singing:
"Blood be flesh
flesh be fur
dear bear,
dear bear,
come alive to me ..."
And so the bear went off and brought back a big she-bear, which the old couple cut up into steaks. They ate these steaks that same night. After dinner, the bear left the house and did not return in the morning. Nor did it return the next morning. Both man and woman sang:
"Flesh of our flesh
blood of our blood
dear bear, dear bear
come back home to us ..."
But the bear did not come back. The old people sang and wept and, in a short while, died.
Used with the permission of Lawrence Millman.