Tales for Sleep: The Queen of the Surf
Tonight's tale is "Mamala the Surf-Rider," from William D. Westervelt's Legends of Old Honolulu, collected in Hawaii. Settle in, and listen.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Mamala was the surf-riding queen of Kou, the village now called Honolulu. The surf she rode was the surf of Ka-lakae, "the rough," long, curling, straight waves that no one dared to ride without first learning their ways. She rode easily, alone, out beyond the breakers, with the breeze feathering the tabu trees — until the young chief Kahaavale saw her on the shore at night, and came again and again. In the racing dug-outs — the double canoes whose bows rise to keep them from plunging under the waves — the chief of a neighbouring village put his little sister on the bow of the fastest canoe, stroke by stroke, race by race, until the two champions met on the water. Listen now, and rest.
The tale:
00:15 — Mamala the Surf-Rider
Source: William D. Westervelt (1861–1942), Legends of Old Honolulu (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., 1916), ch. VII, Project Gutenberg #66547, pp. 135–140 (575 words) — public domain; performed in Westervelt's printed English. Gate record: catalogue/hawaiiWestervelt-canon.md. No completeness claim is made for Westervelt's collection.
Narrated by Lulu
A dry-voice telling — no music, by the Sleep Season's design.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
