Polar bears are important symbols in Inuit culture and beliefs. They believe that Torngarsuk, a powerful being who lives under the sea, can take the shape of a huge polar bear. He controls the sea animals and can accept or reject the shamans who worship him with songs and dances. He would eat them if he found them worthy. Polar bears were also created by Nuliajuk, the goddess of the sea creatures. She could help shamans travel to the Moon or the depths of the sea by sending them a spirit polar bear to ride on. Some stories tell of people who became or pretended to be polar bears by wearing their skins, or polar bears who took off their skins to become human. In Inuit star lore, the group of stars called the Pleiades is a polar bear chased by dogs, while three stars in a row, a cluster of stars and a bright star are hunters, dogs and a wounded bear.
Polar bears have appeared in many stories and legends from the Nordic regions. For example, in The Grimsey Man and the Bear, a farmer is saved by a mother bear who feeds him her milk and takes him back to land. He rewards her with sheep meat. Some Icelandic texts mention a "polar bear king" called the bjarndýrakóngur. This creature was a polar bear with a horn that shone in the dark and "ruddy cheeks". He could understand human speech and was very wise. There are also two Norwegian fairy tales, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" and "White-Bear-King-Valemon", where white bears turn into men and marry women. Is also a common symbol of the Arctic regions. It appears on maps as early as 1539, when the Swedish Carta marina showed a white bear on or near Iceland. Another map from 1544 placed two polar bears in the vicinity of Quebec. The coat of arms of Greenland features a blue shield with a polar bear standing upright. This design originated from the Danish coat of arms in 1666 and is still used by the Danish royal family. The bear was initially depicted walking, but was changed to an upright posture in 1819.
For this prompt any book with a cold/wintery setting counts, bonus points if you manage to read any of the Nordic legends on polar bears.

📚 Suggestions of books / authors:
·       "His dark materials" by Philipp Pulman 

·       "The Snow Queen" by Joan D. Vinge 

·       "Hauksbók" – Icelandic folk 

·       "The Tale of Auðun of the West Fjords" – Norwegian folk 

·       "The Little Polar Bear" by Hans de Beer 

·       Polar Bear Café – manga series by Aloha Higa 

·       "Julian: A Christmas Story" by Robert Charles Wilson 

·       "Little Polar Bear and the Whales" by Hans Beer 

·       "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by CS Lewis 

·       "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys 

·       "The Old Man and the Wolves" by Julia Kristeva 

🧸️ About the polar bear: The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) lives in the Arctic and nearby regions. It is a large bear that shares ancestry with the brown bear and can interbreed with it. It has a thick layer of fat under its white or yellow fur and black skin. It has a slender shape, a narrow skull, a long neck and a small shoulder hump. It has teeth that are good for slicing meat. It has large paws that help it walk on ice and paddle in the water. The polar bear belongs to both the land and the ice and is a marine mammal because of its reliance on the sea. It favors the sea ice that appears every year but moves to land when the ice disappears in the summer. Polar bears are usually solitary but can form groups on land. Cubs remain with their mother for over two years. 

🌐 NGO protecting  polar bears:  home | polarbearfund