Sedna

Here's a quick question:  how many Inuit myths have you read in your life?  That's what I thought.  Well, here you go:

Sedna lived near the ocean with her father.  Her father was an Inung - a spirit who inhabited a living body.  The two lived peacefully for many years, as her mother had died when she was just a little girl.

Sedna was nearing adulthood, and the youths and warriors came from all around to seek her hand in marriage, for she was quite an extraordinarily beautiful young maiden.  Her eyes were the color of the tree bark, her skin was the color of caramel candies, and her hair was as soft as the down of a young gosling.  But in spite of their efforts, Sedna was uninterested.  It was many years before Sedna was wooed, and this is how it happened:

A fulmar came over the sea, and landed at her feet as she was feeling the breeze on her skin.  It was the springtime, and the breeze was starting to warm, but it was her heart which warmed all the more when the bird sang his song.  He offered to take her with him to a land where the people dwelt in the most beautiful tents, where there was never a lack for food, and where the clothes were soft and warm.  Sedna was enticed and enchanted by this strange bird, and agreed to go with him.  So the two of them flew away over the sea and melting ice, until at last they reached the land of the fulmar.  But Sedna had been deceived, for her home was not beautiful, but was made of fish.  Her food was also fish, and her clothes were made of walrus hides, which scratched her.  She lamented her choice, and sang out to her father, "Come and take me home!"  The father came in his boat, and when he saw the treatment his daughter had received, he killed all of the fulmar, and laid waste their land.  Then he took his daughter home.

But some of the fulmar had been out hunting, and when they arrived home, they swore vengeance upon their family and their home, and searched for the boat.  They saw it at a distance, and tried to capsize it with a storm.  The father threw his daughter overboard in an attempt to appease the birds, but she hung on with her fingers.  He sliced her fingers off at the first knuckle, but still she clung.  So he sliced again, but still she clung.  So he sliced a third time, and she slipped into the water.  The three joints of her fingers, in the meantime, became whales, water seals, and land seals. 

Thinking that Sedna had drowned, the birds calmed the storm and flew away, and Sedna's father pulled his daughter back into the boat.  But she was angry with him, and as he slept, she had her dogs gnaw off his hands and feet.  At this time, the boat sank into the sea, along with Sedna and her father.  Now Sedna rules the land of Adlivun, where the dead dwell.

-Inuit Myth