Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/192

186 shadow of two stones in their possession, one for the new moon and the other for the full moon. One stone on one side of the island is round like the full moon, the other on the opposite side of Erub is crescentic, like the new

XXII.

Once upon a time, a number of Murray Islanders, belonging to the clans known as Meurum-le and Komet-le, went in several canoes to the sandbank known as Kerget, to get shell-turtle and wauri. Though they stayed several days, no turtle were obtained. One man, "Mairuer", said to the coral zogo on the sandbank, "What, you zogo, you! You no help me get turtle". The spirit was "wild", and numerous spirits of the place combined together and sent a pair of turtle in deep water. A canoe went to catch the turtle. Two men tied some rope on their arm and went to the bow, Mairuer steering. The turtle looked up, and, seeing that Mairuer was not prepared to swim, they dived down. Two other men came forward, with the same result, until Mairuer was alone left. The men said to him, "Mairuer, you only are left. We all try; we think turtle no want us to catch them. Good thing you try; we all got bad luck." So Mairuer tied the rope on his arm (2), and went into the boat, and the other men pulled. The turtle saw that Mairuer was ready, and they did not move, but hung down their heads as if they were dead. Mairuer dived into the water and swam to the turtle, and jumped on to the back of the male turtle and caught him. The turtle, however, dived to the bottom, and the other turtle went on the top of Mairuer and took the rope off his arm. The men, to their surprise, hauled up a burdenless rope.

The two turtles, with Mairuer between them, came up near the bow of the canoe, and Mairuer called out, "You