Atondido Stories
Deereeree the Wagtail, and the Rainbow
Deereeree was a widow and lived in a camp alone with her four
little girls. One day Bibbee came and made a camp not far from
hers. Deereeree was frightened of him, too frightened to go to
sleep. All night she used to watch his camp, and if she heard a
sound she would cry aloud: "Deerceree, wyah, wyah,
Deereeree," Sometimes she would be calling out nearly all night.
In the morning, Bibbee would come over to her camp and
ask her what was the matter that she had called out so in the
night. She told him that she thought she heard some one walk-
ing about and was afraid, for she was alone with her four little
girls.
He told her she ought not to be afraid with all her children
round her. But night after night she sat up crying: "Wyah, wyah,
Deereeree, Deereeree."
t last Bibbee said! "If you are so frightened, marry me and
live in my camp. I will take care of you." But Deereeree said she
did not want to marry. So night after night was to be heard her
plaintive cry of "Wyah, wyah, Deereeree, Deereeree." And again
and again Bibbee pressed her to share his camp and marry him.
But she always refused. The more she refused the more he
wished to marry her. And he used to wonder how he could in-
duce her to change her mind.
At last he thought of a plan of surprising her into giving her
consent. He set to work and made a beautiful and many col-
oured arch, which, when it was made, he called Euloowirree,
and he placed it right across the sky, reaching from one side of
the earth to the other. When the rainbow was firmly placed in
the sky, and showing out in all its brilliancy, of many colours, as
a roadway from the earth to the stars, Bibbee went into his camp
to wait. When Deereeree looked up at the sky and saw the
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