Northern Tales: Stories from the Native Peoples of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic Regions

From Greenland to Siberia, from Alaska to Japan, from Canada to North Pole, here are more than one hundred folktales from more than thirty tribal peoples who make their home in the arctic and subarctic regions.By turns tragic and comic, fantastic and earthy, uncanny and profound, these tales transport us to the haunting, little known world of the far North, capturing its fragile majesty and power, enlightening us about the sacredness of life and the unique relationship between man and nature in this most remote part of our world. Included here are stories about village life, about shamans and tricksters, and about all kinds of extraordinary animals. They reflect a rich diveristy of traditions and cultures, spanning the centuries from the prehistoric "Way-Back Time" through the coming of the first white explorers.