Seven tales of the Noongahburrahs, the Aboriginal people of the Narran River country in the north-west of New South Wales, collected by Katie Langloh Parker and published in her “Australian Legendary Tales” in 1896 — the first collection of the legends of a single people, gathered as they were told to the children of the tribe, and read here in Parker's own English.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
A crane and a kangaroo rat discover fire, keep it secret, and lose it to all the tribes at a great corrobboree. A war party comes painted and armed to surprise a camp, and is stopped by one spoken word. A man who would not lend the Moon a rug meets the flood his stinginess earned. A lazy hunter carries home a kangaroo that is not quite what it seems. A widow who will not marry is answered by the first rainbow ever set across the sky. The bees who stored for winter part company with the flies who would not. And at the end, Mayrah comes, the loved wind that blows the winter away and brings the spring.
As Parker printed them, the tales carry her period words for the people who told them. In “The Mayamah,” the raiders' errand is murder, but the wonder stops them before a single blow. In “Mooregoo,” the flood takes its man in a single clause, as the moral of a refused kindness. In “Goolahwilleel,” a deception is answered with a beating, told as the tale's closing joke. And in “Deereeree,” Bibbee wins his wife by working on her fear of his wonders as much as her admiration — the rainbow he makes is, in the tale's own words, harmless and beautiful.
Katie Langloh Parker (1856–1940), “Australian Legendary Tales: Folk-lore of the Noongahburrahs as Told to the Piccaninnies” (London: David Nutt; Melbourne: Melville, Mullen & Slade, 1896).
Narrated by Benedetto. Music: instrumental bed, “Winter Palace Rhapsody.”
Chapters:
01:24 Bootoolgah the Crane and Goonur the Kangaroo Rat, the Fire Makers
10:14 The Mayamah
12:16 Mooregoo the Mopoke, and Bahloo the Moon
13:47 Goolahwilleel the Topknot Pigeons
16:09 Deereeree the Wagtail, and the Rainbow
19:15 Bunyyarl the Flies and Wurrunnunnah the Bees
20:19 Mayrah, the Wind That Blows the Winter Away
Australian folk tales · Aboriginal folk tales · Australian folklore · Katie Langloh Parker · Australian legends · Oceanian folk tales · world folk tales · free audiobook
