How Rindar Tamed the Wild Reindeer
Long ago, a thick sheet of ice covered much of Europe. The weather was bleak and cold, and the winters were long and hard. The summer was so short that it never had time to melt the great ice sheet.
A few people lived on the land on the edge of the great ice cap. In winter, they roamed around searching for food, which was hard to find. The men spent their days hunting the big polar bears, the white-haired snow foxes, and the huge, woolly mammoths. These animals provided not only meat to eat but also fine, warm skins to make clothes.
The chief of these people was named Rindar. He was tall, strong, and wise, and he looked after the other members of his tribe, trying to lead them to places where animals could be found. Not only did the tribe have to find animals to hunt, but they also had to find caves to live in. Despite their warm clothes made from animal skins, it was much too cold for them to live in the open.
However, they could never live in one place for long. They had to always be on the move, following the herds of reindeer and other animals on which they depended for food. Each time they moved, they had to find new places to live.
How Rindar Tamed the Wild Reindeer
By far the best at finding caves in which to live was a little dwarf, so small and agile that he could clamber among the rocks with ease. The dwarf also liked to roam about the great ice field. He would take food with him and remain away for many days. When he returned, he would give Rindar beautiful white fox furs from the animals he had killed, and they were made into fine clothes for Rindar’s wife, Guda, and his little daughter, named Gud.
Late one evening, the dwarf returned from one of his trips on the ice field with a strange present for Gud. It was a small, fluffy polar bear cub. He had found it on the ice, with no mother to look after it, and he was sure the mother had fallen down a crevasse in the ice and been killed. So, he had brought the baby bear home for Gud to look after.
Gud was delighted with her present, but there was one difficulty. What should she give the baby bear for food? It was only a small bear and needed to be fed on milk, but milk was one of the things the tribe did not have. They were hunters, living on the meat from the animals they killed.
Rindar gave the baby bear some meat from the pot, but it was no good; it only made the poor little cub ill.
“We must leave the bear behind when we leave,” said Rindar, “for we have no food for it, and we must go soon in pursuit of the reindeer herds. They are on the move again.”
“But it will die if left alone,” wailed Gud.
“Perhaps its mother is not dead, and she will find it and look after it,” consoled Rindar. But it was no good. Gud was sobbing bitterly at the thought of leaving the cub.
Rindar hated to see his daughter unhappy, and he sat and thought about the problem for some time. Then, without saying anything, he got up, put on his thickest furs, took his spear in hand, and left the cave. He took with him some of the ropes which the women of the tribe had made by cutting the hides of animals into strips.
Two miles away, he saw a herd of reindeer feeding on the moss and lichens growing among the patches of snow on the ground. Silently he crept up behind them, and because he was so quiet, the reindeer never heard him. Dressed in white skins, they did not see him, and because he crept towards them from the opposite side of the wind, they did not smell him.
At some distance from the main herd, a mother reindeer and her fawn were feeding. Rindar crept so close that at least he was able to throw his leather rope over the fawn’s head. Then, very gently, he drew the startled fawn towards him.
The fawn began to struggle, and the mother rushed towards it to find out what was the matter. She smelled suspiciously at the leather rope, but she could not understand what it was. Crawling gently, Rindar led the fawn towards the camp, and the mother followed. The dwarf, who had been watching from a distance, came to help him.
Rindar tied the fawn to a post in an empty cave, and when the mother came in, the dwarf captured her also. Then came the difficult job of milking her, but at last, it was done, and the milk was carried to the bear cub, who drank it greedily. Then the little bear went to sleep, but as it lay there in front of the cave, a huge white form flashed past the blazing wood fire and seized the bear cub in its teeth. It was the mother bear, come to find her lost baby. When she had picked it up, she disappeared into the snow.
“She must have followed her baby by its scent,” said the dwarf. “At least that has solved our problem. We shall need no more milk.”
Rindar, however, just sat in front of his fire, looking thoughtful. “We do need milk,” he said. “How nice it would be if we had milk to drink. Think of the times we have gone hungry because we have had no meat.
“What we have done for this little bear, we must do for the tribe,” said Rindar. “If we kept a herd of reindeer here with us instead of letting them roam over the plains, we should have milk for our little ones and meat for our families. We should have skins to make clothes and turn into leather. Why should we not capture them and tame them and then breed more reindeer from them?”
A great shout of joy arose from the hunters. It was the first time anyone had suggested such a thing, and they all wondered why no one had thought of it before.
Rindar led them all out onto the plain where he had caught the fawn and its mother. The next morning, they brought a small herd of captured reindeer back to the camp. So, the early people began their work of taming the animals and keeping them for their use instead of hunting them down and killing them.