Aboriginal Stories

 

One evening, Frog Man was hunting ducks in the lagoon. He was standing in the water tying ducks to his waistband and getting ready to wade back to his wife on the bank when from the corner of his eye he suddenly saw a great, grey looming shape. It was Bunyip. Frog Man started splashing wildly to shore. His wife had also seen Bunyip and frantically pulled her husband up from the water as he reached her. But, as she did so, Bunyip’s long arm reached out and his claws closed fast around her. Frog Man pulled at his wife, but Bunyip tucked her under his arm, turned and disappeared back into the lagoon. Frog Man desperately searched the darkening waters, but he could find no trace of his wife.

At first light next morning, he gathered some of his little creature frogs, tied them to a long pole and stuck it into the mud as bait. The frogs thrashed their arms and legs and croaked trying to free themselves while Frog Man hid in the reeds with his spear. He set up the pole again and again with fresh frogs when the others stopped croaking and died. He never caught sight of Bunyip, who always came to take the frogs at night when Frog Man could no longer keep his eyes open from sleep.

Then, early one morning Frog Man saw a huge shape part the mists of the lagoon and Bunyip appeared, reaching out his claws to the pole of frogs. Behind him, Frog Man could see his wife, her hair straggling across her face, staring vacant-eyed. Frog Man hurled his spear deep into Bunyip’s flesh and Bunyip groaned; then Frog man hurled his throwing stick into one of Bunyip’s eyes. Bunyip howled and turned, blundering back across the waters.

‘Come to me!’ Frog Man called to his wife, but to his horror she took no notice of him, turning instead to follow Bunyip across the misty waters. Bunyip had cast a spell over her to bind her close to him. Frog Man made after the pair, following them to the other side of the lagoon, where Bunyip hauled himself up the bank and climbed a gum tree, glaring down one-eyed from the top. Frog Man’s wife stood at the base of the tree as if frozen. Frog Man called to her again: ‘Come with me now. You are safe.’ She put out her arms, but couldn’t move. Frog Man took a step towards her, but he froze too: he had stepped into the circle of power which tied his wife to Bunyip.

Day turned to night, days and weeks passed, and the seasons came and went. The petrified bodies of Frog Man and his wife stood beside the lagoon like stumps, arms outstretched to each other in longing. Above them the single eye of Bunyip glared from the leaves of the tree. Then one day a great storm came, blowing the tree down and breaking the spell. Frog Man and his wife were at last reunited.

Frog Man’s descendants never touched the little frogs again, leaving them for Bunyip to eat, so the beast wouldn’t molest them. And where the Murray River now flows, it is said that the moon is the eye of Bunyip that once stole the wife of Frog Man.

Adapted from A.W. Reed, Aboriginal Fables (Sydney: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1965)

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