Why was her beloved granddaughter lying? Perhaps, she thought, some evil spirit had done this at night while the innocent girl was sleeping. Yes, that must be it.

So when her granddaughter’s child was born—a handsome, smiling boy—the grandmother decided that the boy had to be evil. He would only bring them bad luck.

I must get rid of this child, the grandmother decided. There is no other way.

She waited until her daughter was sleeping, took down a stone ax from the place where it hung on the wall, and stuck it under her belt. As she lifted the child, the boy smiled up at her with great warmth and reached out one small hand to gently caress her cheek. For a moment, that smile touched her heart. But she shook her head. She knew what must be done.

She walked outside. A cold wind was blowing from the direction of the winter land. The ice on the big lake was frozen solid.

Taking a long pole from the firewood stacked outside, she began to walk out onto the lake, leaning into the wind. She walked until, when she looked back, their little longhouse seemed no bigger than a brown fallen leaf. Then she chopped a hole in the thick ice. When she was done she lifted up her great-grandson and quickly dropped him into the freezing water. Picking up the long pole, she used it to shove the baby far under the ice. Then she shoved ice and snow into the hole until there was no sign it had ever been there.

Without looking over her shoulder, she trudged back to the lodge. But even before she pushed aside the heavy skin hung over the door, she heard the sound from inside of an infant cooing. When she looked inside, what she saw made her knees weak. Her granddaughter was sitting by the fire and held in her arms, smiling and making little happy sounds, was that boy.

Now the grandmother was sure that the child was evil. How else could any being, especially a tiny baby, have survived the icy water of the big lake? And how could it have appeared back in the lodge before she returned? So she did not give up on her plan to get rid of him.

The next day, she walked deep into the forest. Under a great pine tree, she cleared away the deep snow from a patch of ground. The earth was frozen on top, but she worked hard to break through the icy soil with that stone ax. Then she began to dig. When the hole was as deep as her waist, she climbed out and went back to the lodge where her granddaughter had just finished feeding the baby.

“Here,” the grandmother said, holding out her arms. “Let me take him outside. The fresh air will do him good.”