Reading Notes: Inuit Folk Tales, Part A

Looking through Part A of the Inuit tales unit, the story I found most suitable to retelling was that of "The Giant Dog." This tale is about a man who owns a giant dog, as the title would indicate. It is not specified how he acquired this dog, but it helps him greatly in hunting and journeying from place to place. For the most part, the story revolves around the man attempting to deal with the dog's developing habit of eating people. In the end, he manages to get the dog away from people, but as it turns out, the dog had actually begun sneaking away at night to eat people. It was okay though because at this point the dog was only eating "inland-dwellers" who also kidnapped and ate people.

There's only really one way to go with a retelling here, and that is making the dog Clifford. I think there's some pretty good comedic opportunities with that.

Additional Note: With the exception of the source book's title, I will be using the word "Inuit" instead of "Eskimo" wherever it appears as "Eskimo" is generally considered to be outdated and insensitive.

Story Source: Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen

Clifford the Big Red Dog. Source: PBS