Aboriginal Stories

 

Bunyip and the Swan

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.

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‘Help!’ he cried, ‘I have a mighty fish.’

They pulled and pulled and pulled at Goondah’s 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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