# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/The Revenge of Hudson

Layout 2
THE REVENGE OF THE HUDSON
AFTER the mutiny that resulted in the departure of the Discoverie from Hudson Bay, leaving her commander, Henry Hudson, his son of the same name, and two or three followers afloat on its lonely waters, it was supposed that all the occupants of the frail and unprovisioned boat perished during the winter,—drowned, perhaps; crushed in the ice; starved; killed by wolves, bears, or savages. Tradition, however, records the finding of a white-faced lad with yellow hair on the great bay's eastern beach. Whether he had been wrecked there or had wandered from some shelter, seeking food, the Indians who found him ​lying on the pebbles could not tell. On his breast were tattooed the letters "H. H." in red ink. The men presently took him to their lodge and revived him, for the boy was exhausted and had been poorly fed, not ill, and it was not long before he became as one among the tribe,—nay, one above the tribe, for among the beliefs of the people was that of a white Messiah with yellow hair who should come to them in a strange boat and aid them in their arts and lead them in their battles. And they soon came to know him as "the white god," for he was wise in council, just and demanding justice, prudent, and his teaching and example made them happier and better. He grew to a great size, was quick in the hunt, invincible in fight, and he married the daughter of a chief. He differed from the Mistassini, among whom he thus became a leader, in that he was not brutal or revengeful. After a battle, so that the cause had been won, he ministered to the enemy, and sent them to their homes with food, to be his friends.
In one of the hunts that took the men to the far shores of Ungava Bay, for seal, the people reached the water on a day of storm. Great was the wonder at the spectacle of a ship with broken rudder and torn sails that was driving toward the land. A monster wave lifted her and flung her with a crash on the beach. As the wave receded a figure scrambled along the bowsprit, leaped waist-deep into the frothing sea, and half swam, half ​waded, to dry ground. He was the sole survivor. A giant he was in size, and he bore a battle-axe. As he saw the red hunters gathering curiously about him he frowned and raised the weapon, but with accord they dropped the points of their seal-spears, to show that he was in no danger from them. For even among enemies, the man who is saved by an act of Providence must be spared, lest by persisting in his harm the anger of the Great Spirit be aroused. To this sacredness of miraculous escape were due the safety of Washington at Braddock's defeat, and that of Major Rogers after his apparent leap down Rogers's Slide. The "white god" advanced with a smile and open hand to meet the shipwrecked one, but as he came before him he stopped and searched his face, his own countenance turning hard and gray and his eyes kindling fiercely as he looked. Then he tore aside his fur jacket and showed the letters "H. H." burning on his breast. The stranger started back in fear, his legs shook under him, his axe hung in a nerveless hand. Then he fell on his knees and begged for mercy in a tongue that the Indians did not comprehend. The "white god" spoke never a word, but he seized his own hatchet from his belt, and with all his great might he struck the stranger on the head, cleaving him to the chin. Then, turning to his people, he said, "He was my father's murderer. Fling his body into the sea, and may he find hell there."