The Love Of The Beluga Whale

The so called ‘fairy tales’ as popularised by Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grimm, and later Oscar Wilde amongst others, follow a familiar formula. Sometimes they may be shockingly amoral, but typically they include a moral choice, a trial and lastly, the transformation of the protagonist. What follows is an attempt to fit an Inuit myth with its animistic traditions within the traditional template of the European fairytale. I try to subtly address the question often asked by children: what is love?

The beluga whale loved the ice because it meant good feeding, but summer was coming, and with each day, there was less and less and less of it. So the beluga swam north toward the pole, where the ice was permanent, and he could feed over the summer. Swimming one day, it surfaced near an ice flow and heard a high yelp.

“What can that be?” wondered the beluga, “perhaps it is a petrel, tired from its migration. “I must find out” and so the beluga circled the iceberg to see who was calling to it.

When it got almost all the way around it saw an arctic fox standing on the edge of the iceberg with its paws almost wet from the sea. The arctic fox called to the beluga whale and said, “Help me beluga, for I have lost my way”.

The beluga asked whatever was the fox doing all alone, adrift on an iceberg, in the middle of the sea. “I was searching for food for my children whom I love” said the arctic fox, “and I smelt some fish on the edge of the ice where I normally would not go – but my children love fish. When I had found the fish and tried to come back to feed my children, the ice had broken off, and I was too far from shore to swim. Help me beluga, for my children whom I love will surely starve without me”.

The beluga whale listened to the arctic fox, and swam under the water to think. The beluga whale needed to follow the ice north, or else it would not be able to find the small fish upon which it fed, so it told the arctic. “I cannot help you arctic fox, for my way leads north, and yours south. By my soul I would like to help you, but if I did I would surely starve”. At this the arctic fox wailed and cried for her children, but then remembering herself, for despite her grief she knew that what she had asked of the beluga whale was not possible, “I understand what you say oh beluga, and I knew it in my heart when I asked you, but my love made me ask. I wish you good feeding up north, and only ask that you tell my children that I did not leave them on purpose, if you should ever see them”.

When it saw the dignity of the arctic fox the beluga knew shame in its conscience, and decided that it would help the arctic fox return to its children.

Using the mighty dome of its forehead the beluga began to push the iceberg back toward the fox’s home. “What of you?” the fox asked the beluga, “how will you eat, if you push me all the way home?”

“It is in my heart that I would like to see you reunited with your children” said the beluga, “do not concern yourself with my wellbeing.”

Day and night the beluga pushed the iceberg south, until at last they reached the shore of Greenland. The arctic fox yelped high and searchingly, and at last she heard four small yelps in return. The beluga whale saw the love of the arctic fox for its children when she ran to them and licked them with her small tongue and the beluga whale was happy.

“How can we thank you” said the fox, “for what you have done for us?”

“I am thanked already” said the beluga, “and now I must go for I am weary, and very weak, and I have such a long way to go”.

The beluga did not make it to the feeding grounds for in truth he had no more strength and could swim no more, but the Inuit goddess Sedna who protects the animals of the sea had been watching the beluga whale’s love, and when he died she wrought a mighty transformation and raised him into the sky. If you are ever in that part of the world, make sure you look to the sky at night because when the waves of the northern lights beat upon the shores of our world you might see the beluga when he surfaces.

That then, is a traditional European fairytale, told using traditional Inuit totems or animal spirits. Projection onto animals is common in all fairytales but an examination of actual Inuit mythology displays stories with less of a moral overtone, which may be due to the extremely hostile environment that the Inuit inhabits. Perhaps as a result, Inuit mythology is centred on the hazards of that environment and the tales are usually cautionary.