More Australian Legendary Tales/A Legend of the Flowers
A Legend of the Flowers
After Byamee left the earth,[1] having gone to dwell in Bullimah, the far-away land of rest, beyond the top of the Oobi Oobi mountain, all the flowers that grew on the wogghees or plains, on the moorillahs or ridges, and all the flowers that grew on the trees withered and died. None grew again in their place. The earth looked bare and desolate with no flowers to brighten it. That there had ever been any became but a tradition, which the old people of the tribes told to the young ones.
As the flowers were gone so were the bees. In vain the women took their wirrees out to fill with honey; they always returned without it. In all the length of the land there were but three trees where the bees still lived and worked, and these the people did not dare to touch, for Byamee had put his mäh or brand on them, claiming them thus as his own for ever.
The children cried for honey, and the mothers murmured because the wirreenuns would not let them touch the trees of Byamee, which were sacred from all for ever.
When the All-seeing Spirit saw that though the tribe hungered for honey, yet did they not touch Byamee's trees he told him of their obedience.
Byamee was pleased, and said he would send them something which, when, as now, the land was perished with a drought, should come on the Bibbil and Goolabah trees, giving a food as sweet to the taste of the children as honey.
Soon were seen white sugary specks on the leaves of the Bibbil, which the Daens called Goonbean, and then came the clear wahlerh, or manna, running down the trees like honey, to pile into lumps which stiffened on the forks of the branches, or sometimes fell to the ground, whence the children gathered and ate it when they could not reach the branches.
The hearts of the people were glad as they ate gratefully the sweet food sent them. But still the wirreenuns greatly longed to see the earth covered again with flowers, as before the going of Byamee. So great grew the longing that they determined to travel after him, and ask that the earth might again be made beautiful. Telling the tribes nothing of where they were going, they sped away to the north-east. On and on they journeyed, until they came to the foot of the great Oobi Oobi mountain, which towered high above them until they lost sight of its top in the sky. Steep and unscalable looked its sides of sheer rock as they walked along its base.
But at length they espied a foothold cut in a rock, another and yet another, and looking upward they saw a pathway of steps cut as far as they could see. Up this ladder of stone they determined to climb.
On they went, and when the first day's climb was ended the top of the mountain still seemed high above them, and even so at the end of the second and third day, for the route was circuitous and long; but on the fourth day they reached the summit. There they saw a stone excavation into which bubbled up a spring of fresh water, from which they drank thirstily, and found it so invigorated them as to make them lose all feeling of weariness, which had previously almost prostrated them. They saw at a little distance from the spring circles of piled up stones. They went into one of these, and almost immediately they heard the sound of a gayandy, the medium through which Wallahgooroonbooan's voice was heard. Wallahgooroonbooan was the spirit messenger of Byamee. He asked the wirreenuns what they wanted there, where the sacred lore of Byamee was told to such as came in search of knowledge. They told him how dreary the earth had looked since Byamee had left it, how the flowers had all died, and never bloomed again. And though Byamee had sent the wahlerh, or manna, to take the place of the long-missed honey, yet they longed to see again the flowers making the earth gay as once it had been.
Then Wallahgooroonbooan ordered some of the attendant spirits of the sacred mountain to lift the wirreenuns into Bullimah, where fadeless flowers never ceased to bloom. Of these the wirreenuns might gather as many as they could hold in their hands. Then the spirits would lift them back into the sacred circle on the summit of Oobi Oobi, whence they must return as quickly as possible to their tribes.
As the voice ceased the wirreenuns were lifted up through an opening in the sky, and set down in a land of beauty, flowers blooming everywhere, in such luxuriance as they had never seen before, massed together in lines of brilliant colouring, looking like hundreds of euloowirrees, rainbows, laid on the grass. So overcome were the wirreenuns that for some moments they could only cry, but the tears were tears of joy.
Remembering what they had come for, they stooped and gathered quickly their hands full of the various blossoms.
The spirits then lifted them down again into the stone, circle on the top of Oobi Oobi.
There sounded again the voice of the gayandy, and Wallahgooroonbooan said: "Tell your tribes, when you take them these flowers, that never again shall the earth be bare of them. All through the seasons a few shall be sent by the different winds, but Yarrageh Mayrah shall bring them in plenty, blossoms to every tree and shrub, blossoms to wave midst the grasses on wogghees and moorillahs, thick as the hairs on an opossum's skin. But Yarrageh Mayrah shall not always make them thus thick, but only at times; but the earth shall never again be quite bare of blossoms. When they are few, and the sweet-breathed wind is not blowing to bring first the showers and then the flowers, and the bees can only make scarce enough honey for themselves, then the wahlerh or manna shall again drop from the trees, to take the place of honey until Yarrageh Mayrah once more blows the rain down the mountain and opens the blossoms for the bees; and then there will be honey for all. Now make haste and take this promise, and the fadeless flowers which are the sign of it, to, your people."
The voice ceased, then the wirreenuns went back to their tribes; back with the blossoms from Bullimah. Down the stone ladder, which had been cut by the spirits for the coming of Byamee, they went; across the wogghees and over the moorillahs back to the camp of their tribes. Their people flocked round them, gazing with wonder-opened eyes at the blossoms the wirreenuns carried. Fresh as when they left Bullimah were these flowers, filling the air with fragrance. When the tribes had gazed long at the blossoms and heard of the promise made to them by Byamee through his messenger, Wallahgooroonbooan, the wirreenuns scattered the flowers from Bullimah far and wide. Some fell on the tree tops, some on the plains and ridges, and where they fell their kind have grown ever since.
The name of the spot where the wirreenuns first showed the flowers and scattered them; is still called Ghirraween, the place of flowers. There, after the bees of Byamee had made Yarrageh blow the rain down the mountain of Oobi Oobi to soften the frost-hardened ground, green grasses shot up framing fragrant bright flowers of many hues. And the trees and shrubs blossomed thickly again, and the earth was covered with cool grass and flowers as when Byamee walked on it.
It is the work of the bees of Byamee to make Yarrageh the east wind blow the rain down the mountain, that the trees may blossom and the earth bees make honey.
Gladly does Yarrageh do the bidding of the bees, lighting the face of the earth with the smile of rain-water, for are not the Gwaimuthen his relations? The Gwaimuthen whose dark blood is warm as is his.
And the messengers who come in the drought, bringing manna, are the black ants, who bring the goonbean on to the leaves, and the little grey birds called Dulloorah, who bring the wahlerh, or liquid manna.
And when they come the Daens say: "A time of drought is here, a great drought on all the land. Few are the flowers anywhere, and the grass-seed has gone. But goonbean and wahlerh will go, and the drought will go, and then the flowers and the bees will come again, for so it has always been since the wirreenuns brought the blossoms from Bullimah."
- ↑ See the Borah of Byamee, "Australian Legendary Tales," p. 97.