Old Bayame said to his young wives Birre-nulu and Kannan-baley:
“I stuck a white feather between the bee’s hind legs. Having released her, I will follow her to the nest to get honey. While I go for honey, you bring frogs and sweet potatoes and meet me at the Kurijil spring. The water there is tasty and clean.
Taking wicker bags of gulai and digging sticks, the wives left. They walked for a long time, dug up a lot of yams and frogs, and finally, tired, they came to the Kurijil spring. Seeing the cool, fresh water, they wanted to swim. But first they built a canopy of branches and left under it gulai with food, frogs and sweet potatoes.
When everything was ready for the arrival of Baiame, who forced them to marry him with the help of a nulla-nulla club and kept them in submission with the same weapon, they went to the spring to bathe. Taking off the gumilla loincloths that they had worn when they were still very young, the women laid them on the ground near the spring and joyfully threw themselves into the water.
Before their hot, tired limbs had time to enjoy the coolness, they were grabbed and swallowed by Kurria crocodiles.
Having swallowed the girls, the Kurria dived into a cave that served as the entrance to the underground bed of the Narran River. They floated along this passage, taking with them all the water of the source into the Narran River, which also became waterless as they progressed.
At this time, Baiame, not knowing about the fate of his wives, was looking for honey. For some time he followed the bee with a white feather, but soon the bee sat on a buz flower and did not want to fly further.
Bayame said:
“Something happened, otherwise the bee wouldn’t have stopped here.” I must go to the Kurijil spring and see if my wives are safe. Something terrible probably happened.” And Baiame hurried to the source.
Arriving there, he saw a canopy made of branches made by his wives, yams and frogs they had dug up. But Birra-nulu and Kannan-baley were nowhere to be seen.
He called them loudly, but there was no answer. Baiame approached the source. On the shore he noticed the gumillas of his wives. He looked into the source and, seeing that it was dry, said:
- This is the work of Kurria, they opened an underground passage and sailed with my wives to the river, draining the source. I know well where. the passage joins the Narran River, and I will hasten there.
Armed with Voggar spears and battle axes, Baiame set off after the crocodiles. He soon reached a deep reservoir where the underground channel of the Kurijil spring connected with the Narran River. Here he saw something he had never seen before: a deep reservoir had dried up! Bayame said:
“As they advanced, they drained the reservoirs, taking the water with them. I will not follow the bends of the river, tripling the distance I have to travel. I know deep places well and I will go straight from one large body of water to another and I can get ahead of Kurria.
Baiame followed quickly, cutting the distance from one large body of water to another, and his trail is still marked by the pebble ridges of the morill-la, extending along the Narran River and directed towards the deep reservoirs.
Approaching the ponds, he found them dry until he reached the end of the Narran River, where the reservoir was still damp and dirty. Then he realized that his enemies were close, and soon he really saw them. Unnoticed, Baiame got ahead of Kurria and hid behind a large sacred zil tree. Approaching him, the Kurrias headed in different directions. Baiame quickly threw his spears and wounded both Currias; they writhed in pain and frantically beat their tails, forming large depressions in the ground, which were quickly filled with the water they brought. Fearing that they might elude him again, Baiame pulled them out of the water and killed them with a woggar's axe. Since then, the Narran River, flooding, floods the depressions that Kurria, writhing, dug.
Seeing that the Kurria were dead, Baiame cut them up and took out the bodies of their wives. The women were covered in wet mucus and appeared dead. Then he placed them on the nests of red ants and began to watch them. The ants quickly covered the bodies, clearing them of wet mucus, and Baiame noticed the convulsive twitching of the women's muscles.
“They are alive, they feel the bites of the ants,” he said.
As soon as he said these words, there was a sound like a clap of thunder, but it seemed to come from the ears of the women. When the echo died down, the women slowly stood up. They stood amazed for some time, then clung to each other, trembling in mortal fear. Baiame approached them and explained how he saved them from Kurria. He ordered them no longer to bathe in the deep pools of the Narran River, the lair of Curria.
Baiame pointed to the waters near Bugir and said:
— Black swans, pelicans and ducks will appear here soon. Where there used to be dry earth and rocks, there will be water and waterfowl. When the Narran River floods, it will fill this depression and form a large lake.
It happened as Baiame said; This is evidenced by the Narran River with its vast expanse of water that stretches for miles and is home to thousands of wild birds.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru