Fairy Tales and Folk-Lore of New Zealand and the South Seas/The Fairy Fishermen
Fairy Tales and Folk-Lore of New Zealand and the South Seas.
LESSON I.
THE FAIRY FISHERMEN.
(New Zealand.)
A chief named Kahu was one day walking along the sand which edges the sea, when he noticed some footprints which did not seem to him as if they had been made by mortals. He was very tired, for he had journeyed a long way and had still further to go before he could arrive at the home of the relatives he was on his way to visit. So he sat down and rested, looking about him at the footmarks, and he was not long engaged in glancing about before he perceived signs as of fish having been caught and cleaned on the beach. He was very puzzled, and said to himself “If these had been human visitors some of the grass and reeds on which they sat in their canoe would be scattered about the place; moreover, they must have been fishing in the dark. Surely this is the work of fairies.”—Thinking thus he withdrew from the place and returned to rest awhile, determining to visit the place when night fell, and to try and discover something more about the supernatural fishermen. When the darkness came on he returned to the beach and waited there for many hours until he was tired out and almost ready to give up his watching, when suddenly he heard a voice cry, “The net here! the net here!” The fairies had returned to fish for mackerel, and soon Kahu saw two canoes with their elfin crews busily employed in laying nets. The fairies sang away over their work; their song being something like this:
“Drop the net in the water here!
Haul the net from the water there!”
the voices ringing out louder and louder.
Kahu was a small and unusually fair-skinned man, almost as white as the fairies themselves, so he slipped out among the fairies who were hauling the net, and he pulled away lustily with the others, none of them observing that he was not one of themselves. The fairies changed their song when the net began to get near the shore, singing:
“Go out into the sea;
Keep the net from the rocks;
Protect the precious net
From the rugged, cutting rocks!”
Soon the ripples caused by the net nearing the shore began running up the beach, and the fish were seen splashing in the shallow water and flapping on the sand. The fairies ran about picking up the fish, each fairy making up a bundle of spoil by running a string through the gills. The grey dawn was beginning to appear, so they hurried and bustled about as swiftly as they could, singing:
“Make haste, hurry, hurry!
Run here! run there!
Thread the fish; end the work
Soon will come the sun.”
Kahu worked away also at picking up fish and stringing them, but he omitted to make a knot at the end of his string, and as fast as he put the fish on they slipped off again. The sly fellow was trying to delay all he could so that he might gain time and allow the sun to rise before the work was finished. One fairy would run and assist him to make a knot, then another, but hardly had his helpers gone than Kahu would untie the knot and let the fish go. This went on so long, the others being delayed through helping him, that at last dawn appeared and there was light enough to see one another distinctly. Then the fairies saw that Kahu was not one of themselves but was a human being. With cries of dismay and fright they rushed away and hid themselves, leaving their canoes and nets on the shore together with all their fish. It was a very lucky night’s work for Kahu, because from the nets left by the fairies the Maori people learned how to make the netting-knot, which before that time they had not known, and this art of making nets has ever since been known and practised.
fish′-er-man
de-ter′-min-ing
rip′-ples
bus′-tled
foot′-prints
sud′-den-ly
pre′-cious
dis-tinc′-tly
rel′-a-tives
elf′-in
dis-may′
fel′-low
hu′-man
em-ployed′
o-mit′-ted
gills
glance, to look at quickly for a moment.
su′-per-nat′-u-ral, being above or beyond the laws of nature.
dawn, the break of day.
ca-noe′, a native boat, generally hewn out of a log.
mack′-er-el, a kind of small sea fish.