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Long, long ago, some men went
fishing for eels. They came to a flat place they knew would
be covered with water after the great rains. The great rains
had not yet come so they found only a set of pools.
They began to fish for the eels.
All but Goondah had worms for bait. He had a piece of raw
meat and he put it on the hook at the end of his fishing line.
For a long time they caught nothing, but at last Goondah felt
something pulling hard at his line.
Help! he cried, I have a mighty
fish.
They pulled and pulled and pulled
at Goondahs line.
At last, there lay panting on
the bank a monster with the head of a calf and the body of
a seal. It was the cub of the dreaded Bunyip. Then they heard
a fierce howl and the mother Bunyip rose out of the water
and came towards them.
Let the cub go! cried the men.
But Goondah would not let it go.
He had told his sweetheart he
would bring something home from the hunt for her. So he flung
the cub onto his back and they all ran for camp.
They heard a low rushing sound
behind them. They looked back and saw the mother Bunyip riding
on a wall of water which was rushing after them. Terrified,
they ran with all their might, but just as they got to their
camp the water was upon them.
Goondah dropped the little Bunyip,
clasped his sweetheart and cried: I will climb with you to
the top of the tall red gum where no water can reach us.
But as he spoke, he felt the
water swirl around his feet. Looking down, he saw that they
were feet no longer. He looked for the maiden at his side,
but he saw only a great black bird. He looked around for his
friends, but they had all been turned into black swans.
The little Bunyip was carried
home by its mother, and the waters sank back into the pool.
Those swans never again became
men, but at night sometimes you can hear them talk in their
human voices.
Adapted from
Department of Education New South Wales, Reader Part 1
(Sydney: Alfred James
Kent, ISO, Government Printer, 1934)
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