Page:More Australian legendary tales.djvu/126

 The bird promised silence, and the wundah went again into the camp. But just as he was going to raise his boondee to deal a fatal blow, "Mil! Mil! Mil!" was cried in the sleeper's ear. The owl had followed the wundah into the camp.

"Why did you do that?" the wundah angrily asked.

"That I shall always do, even as when I was Eerin the man, for did not my tribe spill freely the blood offering? Shall I not then save them from the wundah even as I did from their old enemies? By day I shall rest, and at night I shall roam, hovering round their camps to guard them, by my cry, when danger threatens them."

And so it has been ever since. The spirit of Eerin the light sleeper is in the little grey owl, which is called Eerin too, and ever warns its old tribe at night by crying, "Mil! Mil! Mil!"