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Bunyip (page 2)
There are several traditional and legendary tales
concerning Bunyips and their powers. According to one of them,
these water creatures were involved in the great deluge. The story goes
that a group of men apparently caught and imprisoned a small Bunyip, making its mother so
angry she flooded the land until it covered everything. The humans that managed
to escape were turned into black swans.
Another such tale tells of a man belonging to the
Frog tribe (so called because of their frog hunting lifestyle) who went fishing with his wife. As night approached, she warned him
to come back to the bank, concerned that a Bunyip might be near by. Sure enough,
as the man reached the bank and threw the catch to his wife, he saw the long arm
and claws of the Bunyip tighten around the woman's arm and drag her into the
swamp.
Exhausted, the Frog-man courageously tried to track them, but to no avail as the Bunyip leaves no trail. Knowing that the Bunyip had a taste for frogs, the man
then tied several of these amphibians to his spear, in the hope the beast would
hear their racket and come for them. Not surprisingly, the Bunyip showed up
with the Frog-man's wife tagging along, although with empty glazed eyes, just like a
zombie. She was under the Bunyip's
spell. Desperate, the man spears the beast deep in its belly, which then
retreats with the woman along, still under its influence. The Frogman follows
close behind into the swamp, back to the Bunyip's lair, a large hollow tree on
an island. But as the Frog-man comes near and reaches out to his wife, he finds
himself as well under the Bunyip's power, and cannot move.
Days, weeks, months and seasons went by while
the couple remained transfixed. Finally, one day the rains came and a violent
storm broke the Bunyip's power, and the two were able to escape. Upon returning
to their tribe, the man tells the others how he used frogs to find his wife, and
the whole tribe never hunts or hurts frogs again.
See Dragon, Basilisk,
Amulet, Talisman,
Bunyips: Australia's Folklore of Fear,
The
Bunyip Archives,
Call
of the Bunyip,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1) Rose, Carol,
Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth,
W. W. Norton & Company; (2) Smith, Malcolm,
Bunyips & Bigfoots: In Search of Australia's Mystery Animals,
Millennium Books;
(3) Carol and Dinah, Mack,
A Field Guide to
Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits,
Arcade Publishing.
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