Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/454

 426 Collectanea.

wrapped up in paper, and told nie it was for a sick person, who mixed it in water and drank it for a remedy. He said that this was Pather Peter's grave, and that he had been a very holy man.

(^To be continued^

Folk Talks from the Tonga Islands.

Muni of the Torn-Eye. There was once in Tongatabu a great chief, called Motuku Veevalu, who was king of Hihifo, whilst his rival, Bunga Lotohoa (or Lotolava), was king of Hahake. In course of time these two champions met in combat, with the result that Motuku was worsted, and fled and lived in concealment. His rival Bunga then reigned as sole king of I'ongatabu. But one day the wife of the discomfited Motuku, smitten wilh the desire to travel and see distant lands, stowed herself on board a double canoe which was making ready to carry a boat-building party to some other island. All went well until they reached the reef in Haapai called the Fahas, but there the little party, delayed by bad weather, and unpre[)ared to keep so long at sea, soon began to experience the pangs of hunger. Then, seeking a cause for their misfortunes, they discovered the hapless wife of Motuku in the leeward canoe. Dragging the woman out, they cut her open, and, finding her pregnant, flung the babe into the sea. The child thus rudely born drifted far, and was at last cast ashore, still living, at Lofanga, one of the Haapai islands. The luckless infant's woes were not yet over, for, lying there on the surface of a rock, he was assailed by a snipe, which picked out one of his eyes and sadly disfigured his visage. His cries, however, attracted to the spot a man and his wife who had gone down to the sea to fish. Tiiey took compas- sion on the little sea-waif, and determined to adoi)t him, for they were childless and had ever longed for a babe. So the child was nurtured by these foster-parents, who gave him the name of Muni. As the lad grew up he developed a most extraordinary strength, so that the people of Lofanga both envied and feared him, and at