Page:Australian legendary tales.djvu/146

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124
Australian Tales

When they were all camped round the edges of this plain, Wirreenun and his fellow rainmaker made a great rain to fall just over the plain and fill it with water.

When the plain was changed into a lake, Wirreenun said to the young men of his tribe: "Now take your nets and fish."

"What good?" said they. "The lake is filled from the rain, not the flood water of rivers, filled but yesterday, how then shall there be fish?"

"Go," said Wirreenun. "Go as I bid you; fish. If your nets catch nothing then shall Wirreenun speak no more to the men of his tribe, he will seek only honey and yams with the women."

More to please the man who had changed their country from a desert to a hunter's paradise, they did as he bade them, took their nets and went into the lake. And the first time they drew their nets, they were heavy with goodoo, murree, tucki, and bunmillah. And so many did they catch that all the tribes, and their dogs had plenty.

Then the elders of the camp said now that there was plenty everywhere, they would have a borah that the boys should be made young men. On one of the ridges away from the camp, that the women should not know, would they prepare a ground.

And so was the big borah of the Googoorewon held, the borah which was famous as following on the triumph of Wirreenun the rainmaker.