Once upon a time…

There was a man named Itajung. One day he was wandering around the forest, and found a lake where dozens of geese were swimming. Along the shore there were dozens of pairs of boots lined up.

Itajung snuck around, and found the prettiest pair of boots. He took them, and hid with them in a bush nearby.

After an hour or so, the geese decided it was time to move on. They swam to the shore, and discovered a pair of boots was missing! They were quite upset by this, but they had to go. So they lined up and took off, flying into the sky.

Except one. She wandered back and forth along the shore, crying “I want my boots!”

Itajung came out of the bush, holding her boots. “I have them here,” he said. “I’ll give them to you if you become my wife.”

“...No,” she said. “Give me my boots!”

“I’ll only give them to you if you become my wife,” he repeated.

“Well, I really don’t want to, but I want my boots more,” she decided. “I accept. Give me my boots.”

He handed over her boots, and when she put them on the goose turned into a beautiful woman.

Then they went and got married.

They moved to a large village on the coast, where Itajung became a respected fisherman. His wife, on the other hand, was lazy and didn’t like to work. Whenever he brought home fish and ordered her to clean and cook it, she was like “I don’t know how, I’ve never done that before”. Or when he told her to wash the dishes and sweep the floor, she was like “I have literally never held one of those stick things before in my life, and I don’t know what to wash dishes with, since I’ve never used dishes before”. When he asked her to braid her hair all pretty like, she was like “what’s a braid”.

Clearly she was just being difficult.

Well, nine months passed, and she had a baby boy. She was so bad at taking care of the human baby it’s amazing the kid survived. At the end of the year, Itajung considered her a complete failure of a human being. But she was hot, and that’s all that mattered.

Well, one day a flock of geese passed overhead while Itajung was out fishing. When he got back home, his neighbors told him his wife and son were gone. She’d collected feathers that fell from the geese, put them between her and the boy’s fingers, and turned into geese. Then they flew away.

Itajung was very upset by this. So he packed up his stuff and marched after them.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It took a few months, but finally he found the place where all the geese went for the winter. Unfortunately, it was now spring, so he’d missed them. A couple lazy geese who’d decided to stay over the summer told him they knew his wife and son. They’d flown back north, to a specific lake far inland. So off Itajung went.

Another month or so passed.

One day, when he was close, he heard the sound of someone chopping wood. Itajung looked through the trees, and saw a man chopping wood. When he touched the wood chips, they turned into salmon and leapt into the river.

This frightened Itajung, so he scooted away and walked around the man out of his sight. But he wanted to ask the man if he’d seen any geese, so Itajung decided to approach the man. He came slowly out of the woods, in the direction the man was facing.

When the man saw him, he stopped chopping. He called out “who are you and what direction are you coming from?”

“Itajung!” Itajung called. He pointed behind him. “I come from that direction.”

“Good!” the man said. “If you’d seen my back I would have had to kill you. What do you want?”

“I’m looking for my wife and son,” he answered. “They’re geese. Have you seen them?”

The man said “yeah, I know them. She’s married to someone else now, and they live on an island in the middle of a lake. It’s right over there!”

Itajung was like “well heck. I don’t have any boat, and I’m not that great of a swimmer.”

“That’s fine,” the man said. “Here, take this salmon’s spine. Throw it into the water, and it’ll turn into a kayak. It’ll take you to the island. But when you’re in the kayak, keep your eyes closed. If you open them, it’ll upset the kayak.”

Itajung thanked the man, taking the spine. Then he went to the lake and tossed the spine into the water. Instantly, it turned into a kayak. He got in, and as soon as he closed his eyes it took off.

Maybe. He didn’t feel the movement of wind or the splashing of water, so he wasn’t sure the kayak was really moving. Deciding he had to find out, he lifted an eyelid.

“AAAAAAH!!!” the kayak screamed, rocking back and forth.

Itajung clamped his eyes closed, and the kayak stopped screaming and rocking.

On the shore of the island, Itajung’s son heard the scream and looked out. He saw his father and ran to his mother.

“Mama! Mama! Father is in a kayak, on his way here!”

His mother assured him “don’t worry, your father is far away.”

The boy ran back to the shore and squinted, trying to get a good look. Then he ran back to his mother. “Mama! Mama! Father is in a kayak, getting closer!”

His mother said “don’t worry, your father is far away.”

The boy ran back to the shore, and almost immediately ran back to his mother. “Mama! Mama! Father is in a kayak, and he’s almost here!”

Getting concerned, his mother went to check for herself. When she saw him, she grabbed her son’s hand and they ran to find her new husband. When Itajung stepped onto the island, the three of them turned into geese and flew off north.

The kayak, having done its job, turned back into a fish spine and sank to the bottom of the lake.

Leaving Itajung stranded.

He spent the next few months there, but no one, human or goose, came to the island. He tried swimming back to shore, but the water pushed him back to the island. Eventually winter came, and he froze to death.

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Moral: Don’t blackmail people into marriage.