Page:Australian legendary tales.djvu/93

 As he neared the camp his mother cried out: "What have you brought us Ouyan?" We starve for meat, come quickly."

He came and laid the flesh at her feet, saying: "Far did I go, and little did I see, but there is enough for all to-night; to-morrow will I go forth again."

The women cooked the flesh, and ate it hungrily. Afterwards they felt quite ill, but thought it must be because they had eaten too hungrily. The next day they hurried Ouyan forth again. And again he returned bringing his own flesh back. Again the women ate hungrily of it, and again they felt quite ill.

Then, too, Beeargah noticed for the first time that the flesh Ouyan brought looked different from emu flesh. She asked him what flesh it was. He replied: "What should it be but the flesh of emu?"

But Beeargah was not satisfied, and she said to the two women who lived with her: "Go you, to-morrow, follow Ouyan, and see whence he gets this flesh."

The next day, the two women followed Ouyan when he went forth to hunt. They followed at a good distance, that he might not notice that they were following. Soon they heard him crying as if in pain: "Yuckay, yuckay, yuckay nurroo gay gay." When they came near they saw he was cutting the flesh off his own limbs. Before he discovered that they were watching him, back they went to the old woman, and told her what they had seen.

Soon Ouyan came back, bringing, as usual, the flesh with him. When he had thrown it down at his mother's feet, he went away, and lay down as if tired from the chase. His mother went up to him, and before he had time to