Page:Papuan Fairy Tales.djvu/104

68 Now was the old man but a stone's cast from them, and would have laid hold on the girls, but Uapanipani opened his mouth and swallowed them, and flew far over the head of the man as he stood on the beach. Nor were his wings weary until he set the children side by side at the door of their father's house. There were none in the house, and the children searched for a gift wherewith to reward Uapanipani, but he would take nought, save only a cup of coconut shell. Then he flew back to his own land, and was seen no more of them.

The father of the girls had gone to the gardens to gather food that a death feast might be held for his children, whom he thought to have perished. And it came to pass that when he returned and laid down his sheaves of taro, that the two girls ran from out the dark corner, where they lay hidden, and came towards him. And for that he had grieved for them so long a time anger lived no more in his heart, and he took them in his arms and comforted them, and thus were all their sorrows ended.



the old days there was a man who married a woman, and she was a witch, but he knew it not. At night he lay across the doorway of their house,