Being a bear, his birth had not been like that of other animals.

His mother, like all mother-bears in a cold country, had brought him into life a long time before she had finished her winter nap in her den.

He had come while she was asleep.

For a month or six weeks after that, while he was still blind and naked, she had given him milk, while she herself neither ate nor drank nor saw the light of day.

At the end of those six weeks she had gone forth with him from her den to seek the first mouthful of sustenance for herself.