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Overview

A couple lost at sea in fog encounter three enormous canoes. The chief’s son offers hospitality, and his companions lift the small canoe, passengers included, aboard their own vessel. At the settlement, Ooscoon—glossed Liver—welcomes them into his lodge. His hunters carry caribou at their belts as ordinary hunters might carry rabbits. Although the chapter calls these liver-coloured giants, Rand admits that the explanation of the chief’s name is unknown; the proposed connection to skin colour belongs to his footnote.

Ooscoon foresees two attacks three days apart. First a Chenoo, then a Kookwes, approaches; the chief sends his two sons and two other warriors to intercept each enemy. He instructs the visitors to fill and cover their ears with tallow and wrap themselves in skins. Even so, the enemies’ cries nearly kill them, diminishing across three repetitions as each battle ends. The second combat leaves trees embedded in the warriors’ legs, which they remove like splinters. One son falls dead on returning, but Ooscoon tells him to rise, restoring him to life; food and rest complete his recovery.

When the couple wish to see their children, the chief sends them home with meat, furs and a small dog that points their canoe’s course. After greeting the children, the dog returns to its master by running directly across the water. Seven years later, the man dreams of a singing whale; the actual visitor is a silent shark, followed by the familiar dog. Three years after that, he revisits Ooscoon and learns that the chief’s sons died at the time of those visits. Rand identifies the shark in a footnote as a magician in that form, but the narrative supplies no battle explaining the sons’ later deaths.

The aged chief gives his sons’ clothing to the visitor, promising their powers with it. At home the man grows to fill the enormous garments and gains corresponding strength, knowledge and wisdom; removing them restores his ordinary size and weakness. The recorded tale ends there. Rand adds his own conjecture that the man became Ooscoon’s adopted successor, explicitly treating the surviving ending as incomplete. That imagined succession is not part of Nancy Jeddore’s recorded conclusion.

Foreknowledge of approaching enemiesRevives his fallen sonDog guides a canoe and runs across waterGarments confer reversible giant size and powers
01

Origins & earliest records

Rand credits Nancy Jeddore, who said she had heard the story from a relative many years earlier. Neither that relative nor an interview date is named. His proposed setting at the mouth of the St. John River, New Brunswick, is expressly hypothetical. The English account appears in the posthumous 1894 edition edited by Helen L. Webster.

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Records & interpretation

Complete XVII, The Liver-colored Giants and Magicians, pp.142–149, including opening attribution and closing editorial supplement. Rand’s theories about European ships, firearms and northern peoples are collector interpretations, not established origins or an identification of the legendary household with a living community.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Legends of the Micmacs

    Silas Tertius Rand; edited by Helen L. Webster; narrative credited to Nancy Jeddore · 1894

    Complete XVII, The Liver-colored Giants and Magicians, pp.142–149; attribution p.142, hypothetical continuation p.149; prefacev–ix.

Family, evolution & connections

Ooscoon and his two sons — Rand XVII

Express parentage in the narrated account, pp. 144–148.

  • Ooscoon
    • Two unnamed sons (one earlier restored; both later dead)

One father-to-collective-sons branch preserves the stated total. No mother or names for the sons are given. Their deaths and one earlier restoration do not create new individuals. The visiting man’s adoption or succession appears only in Rand’s conjectural appended ending, p. 149, and is excluded. Friendly younger-brother greetings to visitors are not biological sibling evidence.

S. T. Rand, Legends of the Micmacs (1894), XVII, pp. 142–149; narrative parentage pp. 144–148, editorial conjecture p. 149

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

Legends of the Micmacs

New York and London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1894, Wellesley Philological Publications; Silas Tertius Rand’s English translations edited by Helen L. Webster. Preface dated November 1893 read completely; selected episodes independently read from retained original-volume OCR.

  1. Ooscoon’s aid, resurrection and empowering garments occur in the narrative; a successor’s installation is only Rand’s proposed missing conclusion.

    XVII, The Liver-colored Giants and Magicians, pp.142–149, complete story and framing/concluding notes

English mediated historical witness; narrator-specific versions preserved. No original-language manuscript collation, literal ethnographic proof or adoption of collector’s colonial speculation. Separate additions and reconstructed endings are not silently merged.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary textRand1894 original collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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