Comment by kdmccormick

Your point was my initial reaction, too. But hey, these people have been raising kids to survive in the freezing cold for hundreds of years, who am I to say they're wrong?

I bet there is a certain delicacy to telling the stories as allegories so that you can transition them from fantasy to rationality as the kid grows.

For example, the "sea monster that swallows you and brings you to another family" sounds like an allegory for "the water will drown you and bring you to the afterlife / death". If you respect your kid's intellect, I bet that you can explain that connection to them once they're getting too old to believe myths, while still holding onto the emotional connection.