Legends 40: Skin & Bones

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Hey folks, Erin here.

Two quick things to nudge your way before we dive into today's episode.

First, the lore tour has officially kicked off.

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We have four more shows this month in November here, with Minneapolis on the 14th and Milwaukee on the 15th, and then San Francisco on the 21st and Seattle on the 22nd.

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Lore is on tour this month with tickets at lorepodcast.com/slash live, and the Cabinet of Curiosities book arrives tomorrow with details over at grimandmild.com/slash curiosities.

And now, on with the show.

Ludwig was getting desperate.

He had been leading a Danish expedition across Greenland on dog sleds for well over a year now, and at this point, they were running low on provisions.

The entire purpose of their trip had been to map out as much of northeast Greenland's icy landscape as they could, but they had hit a lot of roadblocks.

The few existing maps of Greenland had been inaccurate and had led them astray more than once, costing them precious time.

Most of the expedition's men had already gone back to the ship months before.

The only ones left out in the wilderness were Ludwig and his two associates, Niels and Jürgen, and it wasn't looking good for them.

The year was 1907, so there were no helicopters or airplanes to fly out and rescue them.

The three men were on their own, in one of the most desolate places in the entire world.

And at first, that hadn't worried Ludwig.

His plan had been to get his team across the ice, hunt for more food in the process, and eventually get back to the rest of the group.

But now, unexpectedly mild weather had melted the ice they were supposed to cross on, covering their route back to civilization with freezing water.

And instead of riding sleds across ice and snow, they were forced to travel on foot over sharp rocks, wearing away their footwear.

And to make matters worse, by the time they left their sled behind on October 19th of 1907, the sun was disappearing until springtime, leaving the explorers in the dark.

Slowly, one by one, each of the men died.

Niels was first, dying of cold and exhaustion.

He was soon followed by Ludwig.

Jorgen made it the furthest, but eventually he too succumbed, with all their cartography sketches and notes still in his pocket.

His body wasn't recovered for another six months.

Niels and Ludwig were never found.

Greenland boasts one of the harshest environments on the planet, and its winters have killed thousands of people over the centuries.

But as terrifying as that might sound, the ice and snow there aren't the only things that we should be afraid of.

Because in Greenland, if the climate doesn't get you, the monsters will.

I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore Legends.

In case you didn't already know, Greenland isn't actually very green.

Near the coast, Greenland is slightly more temperate, but the rest of the island remains below freezing all throughout the year, enduring some of the most extreme Arctic conditions on Earth.

In fact, a continental glacier covers about 80% of Greenland's landmass, one of only two continental glaciers in the entire world.

So, naturally, the majority of the population sticks close to the coast, where it isn't coated in ice all year.

Life there is hard, and unsurprisingly, Greenland has been abandoned by its residents time and time again.

We know of at least four distinct cultures that settled Greenland throughout the past, from early Paleo-Inuit to Norsemen to Paleo-Inuit called the Dorset to the ancestors of today's inhabitants, the Proto-Inuit Tula.

The Tula made their way there in the 14th century, quickly adapting to the harsh climate and putting down roots.

Then, the Danish started colonizing Greenland in the 18th century, bringing Christianity with them.

Then, even though Christianity is the country's main religion today, Greenland's culture and their folklore are still largely inspired by Inuit beliefs.

Before Christianity came to Greenland's shores, there was no real pantheon of deities that the Tula believed in.

But that doesn't mean that their country was devoid of spirits who demanded respect.

On the contrary, its icy mountains were teeming with the supernatural, and they were absolutely full of monsters.

Everything in Greenland was about survival and their monster stories were no different.

No two settlements had the same versions of the same story and sometimes they didn't even have the same monsters.

But no matter what, their folklore served as a guideline or more often than not as a warning about how to behave so that you could both survive the Arctic climate and ensure the survival of your entire community.

And if you compromise the safety and strength of your community, then you could become the monster.

Literally.

If someone committed a crime or did something that put a village at risk, then they would be booted out.

Sometimes people left on their own accord, maybe because they felt shame about some sins they committed or because they knew their family would have a better chance of survival without them.

It was more common for women to leave home on their own than it was for men, especially whenever they were wrestling with grief over unrequited love or infertility.

But whatever the reason, whenever someone left the community out of shame or anger, they became a Kvitak.

Translating to mountain men or mountain wanderer, the Kvitak does exactly what you would expect.

They wander around the mountains.

The Kvitak would get as far into the wilderness as they could, find a cave to live in, and hunt wild game while they waited for death to take them.

Because no one could survive Greenland alone, their exile was little more than a death sentence, and they knew it.

But for the Kvitak, death was not the end.

You see, according to legend, banishment did something to the Kvitak's soul.

Their fury twisted and dehumanized them, and with that, they had the power to become something else.

For their transformation, the Kvitok had to spend five days freezing to death.

Then they had to bleed exactly three drops of blood onto the fresh white snow.

Many think that this particular step was added after Christianity came to Greenland as the three drops of blood are thought to represent rebuking the Trinity and accepting powers from the devil.

Because, yes, after this ritual, the Kvitok gained remarkable abilities.

They became immortal, existing as something between a ghost and a supernatural being.

Cold and hunger could never kill them.

They could also fly, and some stories say that they could breathe fire.

They could even talk to animals.

According to legend, the first animal they ate after being reborn would determine what their voice sounded like.

One story claimed that a man met a Kvitak who could only caw like a raven because a raven was his first meal.

Now, accounts on what these creatures looked like differ.

Some say that they wore fox skins and boots made of twigs and leather.

Others say that their bodies themselves grew fur as though they had become wild animals themselves.

Some say that they have red eyes, white hair, and dark skin.

And if the Kvitak was a woman, then it was believed that she became half woman and half polar bear.

But the red eyes and wild fur did not mean that these creatures were automatically evil.

In fact, some were benevolent, leading lost travelers back to civilization.

That said, the more malevolent of their kind were known to murder hunters, and sometimes they even got revenge on the people back in their villages who drove them away.

Greenlandic folklorist Maria Kreutzmann tells the story of a Kvitok who left his village after his aunt disapproved of the woman he loved.

Furious, he abandoned his family and his lover to become a Kvitok.

Sometimes when the women of the village were out picking berries, they could hear him singing because they couldn't see him.

And this went on until one day, finally, the women heard him sing that he would now marry a mythical Greenlandic creature that was half woman, half dog.

Since he had not been allowed to marry the woman he had loved, then he said that his aunt would just have to be content with her new family member, supernatural or not.

His family was devastated, but it was too late.

They never heard his voice again.

Like so many other Kavitok before him, it had been lost forever.

The rule was simple.

If you laugh, you die.

The creature known as the Erlaversenyak is easily one of the most disturbing mythical beings in Greenland, if not the entire world.

Able to appear as either a beautiful young woman or a hideous old crone, she seems harmless enough, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

The Erleversenyak, you see, likes to try to make people laugh.

She clowns around, beating on a drum and acting a fool until her target giggles.

It doesn't even have to be a full laugh.

If she sees even the barest hint of a smile, she pounces.

Before they can get away, she cuts her victims with a type of knife that was used by Inuit for cutting through whale blubber.

But the Erluversigniac uses her knife to cut into her victims' bellies, taking their organs, and then she cooks the intestines and eats them.

The only way to stop her from running away with your guts is to eat them before she can, pulling them all back into your stomach before they can disappear forever.

Fortunately, most of us probably won't ever run the risk of having our organs stolen by this creature.

Unlike many of Greenland's other monsters, she doesn't live on the glacier or in the ocean.

Instead, she lives just west of the moon.

But even though she's up in the sky, Greenland still has plenty of stories about people running into her.

One folktale tells the story of a husband and wife who offended the moon deity Aningaak.

But when Aningaak showed up at their home to confront them, they escaped punishment.

The husband defeated the god in a wrestling match, and instead of being angry, the god was impressed.

So, as a reward, Aningaak invited the husband to visit his home on the moon.

He stressed that it was very important that the husband turn right, but the husband got lost and he turned left past the moon instead.

And that is when he ran into the Erleversiniak.

As soon as she caught sight of him, she started a silly little dance.

Her movements were absurd and soon enough, the husband gave in and smiled.

It was the wrong thing to do.

As soon as his mouth curved upward, she leapt upon him, cutting out his lungs.

Fortunately, the husband was able to flee, snatching his lungs back and eating them as he ran.

Another legend tells of a woman who lived in fear of being beaten by her abusive husband.

Eventually, she just couldn't take it anymore.

She went out into the night calling, moon up there, come and get me.

And this might seem like an odd thing to do, but it worked.

A man with a dog sled suddenly appeared.

He was there to take her up to the moon, and the woman, desperate to escape her terrible home, climbed into the sled.

When they finally arrived on the moon, she saw a host of mythical creatures hanging about.

The man who had had given her a ride pointed to a window lit warmly from the inside.

Peering through the glass, she saw a feast of seal and caribou meat laid out.

The man told her to go inside.

This is where she would sleep for the night.

Before she went in though, the man stopped her.

He told her, do not laugh.

There's a person in there who will try to make you laugh, but you cannot let yourself.

We don't know what the woman thought of these unusual instructions, but soon enough she would learn why he had given them to her.

When she entered the dwelling, she saw that two other humans were already seated inside.

She greeted them, but they said nothing in response.

They just hugged their knees to their chests, where she saw that their innards had been ripped out.

Her face must have given away her horror.

They told her, it is because we snickered that we are this way.

Soon after this disturbing revelation, a giant knife and a huge pot were both brought into the room.

The pot was full of human entrails, and an old woman with stumpy arms and legs soon followed after.

She began to work over the cauldron, cooking the organs over a fire.

But then she noticed the new woman in the room and she began to dance.

The dance was completely preposterous and the new woman, well, she just wasn't strong enough to resist.

She giggled and the Erleversigniac lunged at her.

Thankfully, it didn't catch her.

She moved too quickly, dodging the knife and running out the door.

We don't know where she went after that, only that the Erlaversiniak didn't manage to kill her.

And I think it's safe to say that both monsters, the Kvitak and the Erleversiniak, served as warnings to people.

The Kvitak was a warning not to risk the safety of your community, while the Erlaversiniak was a warning not to trust strangers out on the ice sheet.

Travelers in Greenland were, of course, vulnerable.

Between the freezing temperatures, the vast wilderness, and their limited supplies, sojourners could find themselves in a life or death situation more quickly than you could believe.

Whether it was a simple hunting trip or a journey between villages, things could go south in an instant.

And when that happened, they could get desperate, desperate enough to accept the help of a stranger.

But the Air La Versignac reminds us: not all strangers have good intentions, and not everything you see in the wild can be trusted.

So, if you find yourself in a tight spot one day and a woman offers you a hot meal from a bubbling cauldron, whatever you do, do not laugh.

He hadn't meant to kill his brother.

The day had started out peacefully enough.

Nukungwasik, eager to take advantage of the beautiful weather, had taken his kayak out.

Paddling out into the water, he had decided to visit a large island that he had never visited before.

but upon his arrival he saw one of his brothers was already there his brother was crouched down in a hollow with his back to nakungwasik before he could call out a greeting he heard his brother whispering you are to bite nakungwasik to death and he repeated this over and over again dread washed over him he knew what his brother was doing he was making a tupelak and he was telling the creature to kill nakungasik but let's step back for a moment being hunted by a tupelak was a horrifying prospect.

These monsters were not born.

Instead, they were made.

And more often than not, they were made to do terrible, evil things.

Traditionally, the tupelak was formed by the local shaman, and to do so, these shaman had to follow a very specific process.

First, they had to gather specific pieces and parts from dead animals and from human corpses.

This could include anything from bones to hairs to antlers.

The bodies of dead newborn babies were particularly desirable.

Then these pieces and parts were placed under some moss near a river.

At dawn, the shaman would return to do the necessary spell work and rituals to knit the cadaver parts together and bring the tupelak to life.

After it awoke, the monster would feed to grow stronger, and then once it was ready, it would embark on its nefarious mission.

Tupalak all look different from one another, often taking on a mishmash of physical qualities based on the creatures they were constructed out of.

A sort of hybrid corpse, if you will, Thin, skeletal, and bloodthirsty.

And while some other Inuit cultures around the world believed the tupelak were invisible souls, most Greenlanders believed that they were very visible, and very much parts of the physical world.

And they were all made for one purpose, to kill.

You see, a tupelak was created to carry out a shaman's vengeance against their enemies.

In fact, they were often referred to as avengers, but don't mistake them for superheroes.

No, they were the furthest thing from it.

Every tupelak had special abilities to help it succeed in its task, and each one's powers were different from the other, which meant that their methods for killing varied.

Some would attack like a wild animal, biting and ripping their victim to pieces.

And while I won't get into the details here, others took it further and crossed some pretty horrible lines.

And the trouble was, there wasn't anything that you could do to stop a tupeloc attack.

Unless that is, you were a shaman.

Powerful shaman could send a tupeloc back to its creator, and then the tupelak may kill their master instead.

But if you weren't a shaman yourself, then it was almost impossible to survive a tupeloc attack.

Which brings us back to Nakungwasik.

Remember him, the man who discovered that his brother was going to send a tupelak after him?

Well, it turns out that he found a rather inelegant solution for the whole situation.

After hearing his brother tell his handmade monster to kill him, Nakungwasik didn't stop to think.

He just acted.

He hit his brother across the back of the head, trying to knock him out.

But the blow did far worse.

It killed him.

That single act shocked all the courage out of Nakungwasik, leaving him with none left to face the Tupelak itself.

And so, he ran.

The next day, he and his other brothers went searching for their missing sibling.

He didn't tell them what he knew though.

Even if his brother had been planning on killing him, admitting to murder wouldn't have gone over too well.

So he stayed silent until they found his brother's corpse and the tupelak.

The creature was still alive and it was nibbling at the dead brother's body.

Enraged, the brothers buried the creature under a heap of stones.

He was gone, and Nkungwasik emerged from the ordeal as one of the very few people to have ever survived a tupelak.

One of the primary causes of human evolution over the millennia has been climate.

Moving from one region of the globe to another always forced our ancestors to shift slightly, to become better suited to the world they lived in.

And it's easy to see solid examples of that adaptation in Greenland.

But people aren't the only thing to change over time.

Story evolves as well.

And that's even true of the Tupalok.

It may have started out as the most feared monster in Greenland, but the reputation has changed since then.

Greenland was isolated for thousands of years, but during the 18th and 19th centuries, Europeans started to explore the island.

And once they started learning about the tula culture, they developed a fascination with the tupelak.

And remember, these were organic creations, a sort of Frankenstein's monster crafted out of body parts from both humans and animals, which meant that they decayed and disappeared over time.

So, with no physical examples of tupelak to show Europeans, the locals found a new solution.

Residents of East Greenland started carving little statues to represent the tupalak, and others eventually followed in their stead.

The carvings were all unique from each other, each one sporting different physical attributes from both animals and people.

Even so, they all shared a few similar features too.

Large nostrils, rounded eyes, small pupils, and tongues sticking out.

Unlike their folkloric counterparts, they looked more mischievous than menacing.

The European explorers were delighted by these little carvings and they bought them all.

So Greenland's residents made more and more of them and those were purchased as well.

And over time the tupelak became the first mass-produced Greenlandic merchandise.

Since the 20th century, they have been the cornerstone of Greenland's tourism souvenir industry.

And little by little, the public perception of the tupelak changed.

Today, these carvings are seen as protective charms.

Their power as avenging monsters has been neutralized, and the little statues serve as guardians instead.

And they're not just big within the tourism industry, they've even become popular housewarming gifts as well, evolving from monstrous to harmless.

At least the handheld carved variety, that is.

But the stories still exist, and in folklore, the Tupelak still roams across the ice sheet, searching for retribution.

It's always fascinating to see how the environment shapes the stories we tell.

I hope that today's journey onto the icy slopes of Greenland have helped you see how adaptable folklore can be and how chilling as well.

But in case our exploration into the Arctic hasn't made you cold enough, we have one more bone-chilling monster to tell you about.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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What do you do when you can't trust your own eyes?

Traveling through extreme temperatures can do funny things to your vision.

In a desert, you might see a mirage of an oasis.

And in Greenland, you might see a mirage of the phantom island Fata Morganaland.

Sometimes Greenland's harsh summer sun can bounce off the ocean in the exact right way, and it can create the illusion of an island floating in the waves.

It looks as though it isn't too far away.

It's just on the horizon.

If you sail for a few more minutes, then you'll reach it.

But nobody ever does, because it's not real.

Fatah Morganaland isn't the only mirage in Greenland.

In fact, illusions along the horizon aren't uncommon in extreme polar regions.

Travelers have frequently reported mountains or forests looking much nearer than they actually are.

They keep getting bigger.

but they never get any closer.

And if I'm honest, it would be easy to just blame this on a trick of the light.

But some people blame it on something else.

The Igirat.

The Igirot are malicious creatures that wander the wilderness of Greenland and trick lone travelers.

They lead them astray with illusions, turning them around so terribly that they become hopelessly lost.

And the more lost in panic they become, the easier it is for the Igirot to kidnap them.

This monster doesn't just manipulate the appearance of the outside world.

The Igirot is itself an illusion.

Shamans who have seen them in their natural state say that they resemble humans whose mouths and eyes are on their sides so that they blink sideways.

But very few have seen this version.

Most say that they take the form of some kind of hybrid caribou, half man, half animal.

Others say that they look like normal caribou whose antlers are just a little off and they aren't limited to four hooves.

I girot can shapeshift into any other animal, be it a bear, a bird, or a wolf.

But no matter what form they take, nothing can disguise their bright red eyes.

But according to legend, the Ijira weren't always monsters.

In fact, at one point, they were people.

According to stories, the Ijira were born when a group of Inuit hunters traveled too far north.

They got trapped there, stuck between the world of the dead and the world of the living.

And now they try to make people as lost as they once were.

When one of these creatures chooses a target, it lures them in by singing.

And once that person disappears, it is very rare for them to live to tell the tale.

The few who survive their encounters remember nothing, except for the beautiful song.

Several of the stories from those who have once witnessed an ijirak feeding claim that it did so in the form of a polar bear.

There are multiple stories about parents who leave their children back at camp while they go hunting.

An ijirot leads them astray and they wander around the wilderness just long enough for the ijirot to become a polar bear and eat their children.

And before you file these away as ancient legends from the deep past, some of these stories aren't old, nor are they limited to Greenland.

In 2017, an article related a story from a Canadian Nunavut elder named Peter Suvaksiuk, who said, I used to work with wildlife officers.

When we were dealing with caribou, we would go out by helicopter and put collars on them.

The door of the helicopter would be removed and we would tranquilize them.

There were four caribou.

One was netted.

When the helicopter landed, the wildlife officer and I went to the caribou and released it.

After this caribou disappeared, I was afraid.

There were no footprints at all.

They say that caribou can become igirot.

The caribou just disappeared.

And I think it's important to remember that Inuit folklore is living folklore, particularly in Greenland.

Some locals believe in the existence of monsters and they add their own experiences to the already existing compendium of folktales.

Of course, scientists have tried to explain away monsters like the Igirot, saying that pockets of sour gas could have caused hallucinations.

Other naysayers have claimed that it might be easier to explain the unexpected death of a child by blaming it on monsters.

But these suggestions have been deeply offensive to Inuit who wish for their folklore and their beliefs to be respected.

What is or is not truly monstrous is not up for us to decide.

The safest bet is to travel safely, stay aware, and never trust your eyes.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Jamie Vargas.

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Visit sofi.com/slash power to learn more.

That's SOFI.com/slash P-O-W-E-R.

Loans originated by SoFi Bank NA, member FDIC.

Terms and conditions apply, NMLS 696891.