English Recordings

Shaman:
This blade has a dark past.
It has shed much innocent blood.

You're a fool for traveling alone,
so completely unprepared.

You're lucky your blood's still flowing.

Sintel:
Thank you.

Shaman:
So...

What brings you to
the land of the gatekeepers?

Sintel:
I'm searching for someone.

Shaman:
Someone very dear?
A kindred spirit?

Sintel:
A dragon.

Shaman:
A dangerous quest for a lone hunter.

Sintel:
I've been alone for
as long as I can remember.

We're almost done. Shhh...

Hey, sit still.

Good night, Scales.

Get him, Scales! Come on!

Scales?

Yeah! Come on!

Scales!

I have failed.

Shaman:
You've only failed to see...

These are dragon lands, Sintel.

You are closer than you know.

Shaman:
Scales!

Scales?

Scales...

1. BEGUM’S TRICK

(1) The greatest Mogul Emperor is Akbar. He was very fond of his empress Begum. The Empress wanted the post of Wazir for her brother.
However, the Wazir’s post was occupied by Birbal. Birbal was a brilliant intellect and was apple of Akbar’s eye. Nevertheless, she decided to plead with the Emperor for her brother.

(2) In the evening, when Akbar returned to the palace, the empress said, “Jahanpanah, my brother is an able person. Besides this, he is your relative. He must get the post of Wazir.”

(3) The Emperor exclaimed and said, “Begum, Wazir’s post requires extraordinary intelligence and administrative experience. Your brother is new in this field. Besides this, there is no reason to remove Birbal.”
The Empress was adamant. She replied, “If there is no reason, give him some work which he could not do.”

(4) The Emperor asked, “What? Then you tell me.” Begum thought for some time and then said, “Tomorrow evening while walking in the palace garden, you ask Birbal to call me from my palace. He will never succeed in his task. And then there will be at least one reason.”

(5) The Emperor agreed. The Empress was very much sure that Birbal would certainly fail this time. She knew Birbal could not force her to come in the palace garden. On the next day when Akbar was in the garden, Birbal accompanied him.

(6) The Emperor pretended to be worried. Birbal asked Akbar the reason for his worry.
Akbar said, “Birbal, the Empress has displeased with me and refuses to talk. You know how much I love her here.”

(7) Birbal agreed and left from there. He at once approached Begum in the palace. Begum was waiting for his arrival.
Birbal said, “Begum Sahiba, the Emperor is in the palace garden. He is waiting for you there!”

(8) Hardly has he completed his sentence a messenger entered the chamber and whispered something in the ear of Birbal. Begum listened some words, “…very beautiful …No …no! … no need to come…!”
The messenger then left. Birbal turned towards Begum and said: “Begum Sahiba, sorry for the trouble. Now you are no more required there.”

(9) Birbal was gone, but Begum thought about the words for a long time. “ ’Very beautiful’ seems a beautiful maiden, but what she is doing in the garden? It seems because of her Emperor stopped me from coming there!” thought the Empress who was badly disturbed.

(10) At last unable to bear her distress and envy, she rushed towards the garden. When she reached there, she found Akbar alone. Seeing her there, the Emperor asked, “Begum, you said to me that you could win Birbal this time. But it seems the whole thing turned in the favour of Birbal.”

(11) The Empress was ashamed and said, “I have been fooled by Birbal. Once again Birbal succeeded. However, I accept his wisdom. I take back my words. He is the most suitable person for it.”

A country with 1.4 billion people and an annual economic growth rate of 10% (China) should not be hailed as a success story if it is building a new coal power station every week and causing untold damage to the environment. That is in effect the view of the Arctic hunters and one which I endorse.
Later on this year, the population of the world will reach seven billion. The pernicious combination of this uncontrolled population growth and the finite mineral resources of the planet are undoubtedly the biggest threats to the environment. Unless we take appropriate action and implement policies on these fronts, the disappearance of a small, isolated culture in the Arctic may be a microcosm for a much more apocalyptic outcome. For many, it may seem irrelevant if we lose a culture numbering fewer than a thousand people, but if the Polar Eskimos come to be the canary in the cultural coalmine, then such a loss may have more relevance than some people feared.
If I were to be asked what it is these Arctic hunters want, I would say "peace". This is a people that have never known war. But, by "peace" I would mean not just an absence of war but a return to what you might call in Rousseauesque terms "harmony". There are people in the Thule region that believe the industrialised, polluting nations are living in a state of disharmony with nature, gambling with the world's future by seeking nothing but material gain for themselves in the short term.
The ice is melting. The melting ice will presumably wipe out the traditional culture of the few remaining Arctic hunters in my lifetime, but ultimately, if not stopped, it will threaten the lives of millions around the world. The politicians keep talking, but the ice just keeps melting and the inescapable conclusion will not go away. The hunters look at the thinning sea ice and their message is simple: the clock is ticking.

The Polar Eskimos do not tend to be intellectually curious. Seldom does anybody ask about the place I come from. However, sometimes I am asked how many people live in the United Kingdom. The Greenlanders are well aware that they inhabit the country with the lowest population density on earth, but I always feel embarrassed to admit that over 60 million people are crammed into our little island. Greenland is a country nine times the size of the UK, but the population of the UK is more than a thousand times that of this vast island in the Arctic. The subsequent question, normally, is how I could live in such an overcrowded, multicultural, polluted place where the bond to nature is not only severed, but no longer understood either. The reason for the embarrassment on my part is perhaps because I know that the industrialised country that I come from is a comparatively major polluter whose economy and thirst for economic growth jeopardises indirectly an ancient, simple way of life whose demands on the natural environment are almost zero.
Before coming to the Arctic, I was convinced that we needed a new paradigm for looking at the world. We have reached the point where the pursuit of economic growth at the expense of everything else can only lead to ruin for mankind. We need to develop a system which would turn this model on its head, forcing investors to allocate funds and reward companies, and indeed countries, not solely for their respective growth in earnings or annual percentage increase in GDP, but directly and quantitatively for their progress in having developed green, sustainable products and economies. Having spent much time talking to the Arctic hunters who bear the costs of environmental damage, I am convinced of the need for a new approach to assessing what we consider to be "economic success", and also for the introduction of urgent policies to curtail the world's population growth.

Far in the distance sits an i'duaq (a hut built on a sledge where you can escape the cold on fishing trips): a small speck on a landscape of white nothingness. In this part of the bay, the sea ice is about a metre thick and making a hole in the ice with a shovel is hard work. We drop a line from an industrial-sized reel attached to a two-handed winch standing vertically on a metal frame in the ice. Twenty-five hooks are lowered 200 metres down into the fjord. Then, it is time to retreat to the warmth of a Primus stove and a cup of tea in a tiny plaster board hut measuring no more than 7ft square.
Approaching the hut, I hear the creaky voice of a man and offer the traditional greeting of inugguarunai on entering (this is a word used by older people to mean "hello", but means literally "look, there are some people" – an indication perhaps of how language reflects culture). Going inside this diminutive raised room perched on a sledge is a surreal experience and one of those defining moments of a fieldwork trip.
Here, miles from anywhere on the frozen sea in a forgotten place, lies a man asleep on a skin on the sleeping platform. Three men, clad in bearskin trousers and reindeer-skin anoraks, sit huddled together listening to a storyteller regale his company with an account of a polar bear hunt. It is rude to interrupt a story, and thus my greeting is not reciprocated with the conventional ahukiaq.
There is nowhere to sit and even though my head rests awkwardly on the ceiling of the hut and my bulky down coat fills the little remaining space, I feel paradoxically rather invisible. When stories are offered for payment, it is tempting to think of this oral literature as commoditised and in effect dead. But, here on hunting trips, these traditions do just about continue in an unforgettable atmosphere of breathy voices lingering over steaming cups of cha. The story over, it is time to check our lines, leaving the fugitive hospitality behind. We have caught 17 Greenland halibut and one northern wolffish: a splendid return for two hours' tea-drinking.

Curled-up dogs lie in large circles on the hummocky shore ice, their rusty chains leading from a spike frozen into the ice like spokes on an old, buckled wheel. Jaundiced patches of urine and dog faeces decorate the ice, tampering with its aesthetic of purity. Beyond, the newly snow-covered sea ice stretches as far as the eye can see.
The much anticipated nigeq, a strong wind from the east, brought a platonic white carpet of snow and warmer temperatures at the weekend. The appeal of this white wilderness is tangible and I have been exploring it on skis, armed with a rifle and a VHF radio. Today I have the company of a hunter and a full team of 12 frenzied dogs whose fettered anguish is about to be set free. Trying to put harnesses on snarling, hysterical dogs soon degenerates into mayhem, with fights breaking out amid a chorus of high-pitched screams and yelps. The hunters' whip skimming over their cowered heads silences the pandemonium, and then suddenly we are on our way and I am left to sprint after the rapidly disappearing napariaq (the pair of wooden stanchions at the rear of a sledge).
There is something majestic about the sight of a solitary Polar Eskimo driving a dog team across the frozen sea ice, navigating his way around icebergs, sitting contentedly, listening to the crunch of the runners on the snow and reading the wind from the striae on the ice. The appeal is perhaps its primeval simplicity, but also its timelessness.

World's race for economic growth threatens Greenland's pure white wilderness
The ancient way of life of polar Eskimos faces meltdown from the global population explosion and industrial pollution. Even environmentalists are part of the problem as they suppress a hunting culture
Part of the appeal of coming to the north of Greenland, I have no qualms in saying, was to discover the remnants of a way of life that might be labelled "exotic". However, it would be misleading to suggest that all the polar Eskimos here belong to a culture which could be called "hunter-gatherer". Nowadays, the majority of the people in Qaanaaq live as we do with more or less the same amenities. Seventy-two people own a hunting licence in the Thule region and most of those are part-time hunters.
The number of hunters travelling by dog-sledge across the frozen sea in search of sea mammals is therefore tiny and represents an insignificant threat to wildlife. Their traditional way of life is vanishing not because of global warming, but because the Self-Rule Government has caved in to the pressure and threats of environmentalist groups.
The polar Eskimos feel misunderstood, and it is not difficult to see why. Not unreasonably, they feel that environmentalists ought to focus on the world's major polluting countries which pose a real and significant threat, and not on small indigenous groups who live precariously and take the bare minimum from the land and the sea. The only people to exploit the riches of these Arctic seas were the European whalers of the 19th century who drove many species to the point of extinction. Arriving with their infectious epidemics, such as measles and influenza, they nearly wiped out the indigenous population, too.
Despairing about the prospects for hunting, some people have turned to Greenland halibut fishing instead. This seems like a sensible development and I am intrigued to see how good the ice fishing is here.

His department issued warnings to citizens, detailing the dangers in whiskey circulating in the city: "[P]ractically all the liquor that is sold in New York today is toxic," read one 1928 alert. He publicized every death by alcohol poisoning. He assigned his toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, to analyze confiscated whiskey for poisons—that long list of toxic materials I cited came in part from studies done by the New York City medical examiner's office.
Norris also condemned the federal program for its disproportionate effect on the country's poorest residents. Wealthy people, he pointed out, could afford the best whiskey available. Most of those sickened and dying were those "who cannot afford expensive protection and deal in low grade stuff."
And the numbers were not trivial. In 1926, in New York City, 1,200 were sickened by poisonous alcohol; 400 died. The following year, deaths climbed to 700. These numbers were repeated in cities around the country as public-health officials nationwide joined in the angry clamor. Furious anti-Prohibition legislators pushed for a halt in the use of lethal chemistry. "Only one possessing the instincts of a wild beast would desire to kill or make blind the man who takes a drink of liquor, even if he purchased it from one violating the Prohibition statutes," proclaimed Sen. James Reed of Missouri.
Officially, the special denaturing program ended only once the 18th Amendment was repealed in December 1933. But the chemist's war itself faded away before then. Slowly, government officials quit talking about it. And when Prohibition ended and good grain whiskey reappeared, it was almost as if the craziness of Prohibition—and the poisonous measures taken to enforce it—had never quite happened.

Rigorous enforcement had managed to slow the smuggling of alcohol from Canada and other countries. But crime syndicates responded by stealing massive quantities of industrial alcohol—used in paints and solvents, fuels and medical supplies—and redistilling it to make it potable.
Well, sort of. Industrial alcohol is basically grain alcohol with some unpleasant chemicals mixed in to render it undrinkable. The U.S. government started requiring this "denaturing" process in 1906 for manufacturers who wanted to avoid the taxes levied on potable spirits. The U.S. Treasury Department, charged with overseeing alcohol enforcement, estimated that by the mid-1920s, some 60 million gallons of industrial alcohol were stolen annually to supply the country's drinkers. In response, in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge's government decided to turn to chemistry as an enforcement tool. Some 70 denaturing formulas existed by the 1920s. Most simply added poisonous methyl alcohol into the mix. Others used bitter-tasting compounds that were less lethal, designed to make the alcohol taste so awful that it became undrinkable.
To sell the stolen industrial alcohol, the liquor syndicates employed chemists to "renature" the products, returning them to a drinkable state. The bootleggers paid their chemists a lot more than the government did, and they excelled at their job. Stolen and redistilled alcohol became the primary source of liquor in the country. So federal officials ordered manufacturers to make their products far more deadly.
By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly.
The results were immediate, starting with that horrific holiday body count in the closing days of 1926. Public health officials responded with shock. "The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol," New York City medical examiner Charles Norris said at a hastily organized press conference. "[Y]et it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."

I did, however, remember the U.S. government's controversial decision in the 1970s to spray Mexican marijuana fields with Paraquat, an herbicide. Its use was primarily intended to destroy crops, but government officials also insisted that awareness of the toxin would deter marijuana smokers. They echoed the official position of the 1920s—if some citizens ended up poisoned, well, they'd brought it upon themselves. Although Paraquat wasn't really all that toxic, the outcry forced the government to drop the plan. Still, the incident created an unsurprising lack of trust in government motives, which reveals itself in the occasional rumors circulating today that federal agencies, such as the CIA, mix poison into the illegal drug supply.
During Prohibition, however, an official sense of higher purpose kept the poisoning program in place. As the Chicago Tribune editorialized in 1927: "Normally, no American government would engage in such business. … It is only in the curious fanaticism of Prohibition that any means, however barbarous, are considered justified." Others, however, accused lawmakers opposed to the poisoning plan of being in cahoots with criminals and argued that bootleggers and their law-breaking alcoholic customers deserved no sympathy. "Must Uncle Sam guarantee safety first for souses?" asked Nebraska's Omaha Bee.
The saga began with ratification of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States. * High-minded crusaders and anti-alcohol organizations had helped push the amendment through in 1919, playing on fears of moral decay in a country just emerging from war. The Volstead Act, spelling out the rules for enforcement, passed shortly later, and Prohibition itself went into effect on Jan. 1, 1920.
But people continued to drink—and in large quantities. Alcoholism rates soared during the 1920s; insurance companies charted the increase at more than 300 more percent. Speakeasies promptly opened for business. By the decade's end, some 30,000 existed in New York City alone. Street gangs grew into bootlegging empires built on smuggling, stealing, and manufacturing illegal alcohol. The country's defiant response to the new laws shocked those who sincerely (and naively) believed that the amendment would usher in a new era of upright behavior.