Page:Papuan Fairy Tales.djvu/43

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THE DANCING DAME
21

And now when the waves beat loud upon the coral we say, "Hark! it is the voice of the blind woman's drum."


THE JUNGLE BOY.

There was once a woman whose name was Garawada, and it fell on a day that she went to the jungle with her mother-in-law to look for figs. When they came to a fig tree Garawada climbed into it, and began to eat the ripe fruit, and the green figs she threw down to her mother-in-law for her share. Now the old woman was a witch, and, being angered that Garawada ate the ripe fruit and gave her only green figs, she resolved to punish her. She therefore cried to her daughter-in-law, "Come down, now; we have enough."

Then Garawada began to climb down, and as she reached where the branches forked the witch caused them to come together until her daughter-in-law was firmly fixed so that she could neither go up nor come down. And there she left her, and went back to the village.

Garawada wept bitterly as she watched her mother-in-law going away, and watched for many days to see if she would return and have pity on her. But she never came, and there in the tree her little son was born. Now it so happened that on a day the