Van-raven was so cunning, as if fifty cunning crows had gathered in him. At least that's what Van thought about himself.
One day he went fishing and caught a very small cod. He put it in a small pond for a few days so that he could retrieve it when he needed it.
Ga-ra-ga, a blue crane, and his two sons passed by. Seeing a beautiful, fatty cod—by this time the fish had grown—they caught it, cut it down the middle, and hung it on a tree to dry before frying it.
When Wang arrived and saw the cod hanging, he thought it must be his fish. He decided to go to bed so that his dream spirit, Mulli-Mulli, could see if his fish were swimming in the pond. If it is not there, it means that his fish is hanging on the tree, although it is larger than the one he left in the pond. The Virinuns often use Mulli-Mulli, which they can send everywhere and force them to do what they want.
Mulli-Mulli Vana returned and said that this was his fish. Then Van woke up and looked around. The fish in the tree has disappeared! While Van was sleeping, Ga-ra-ga fried her.
When Ga-ra-ga saw Van looking at the fish, he asked:
- Would you like some fish? - and politely offered him the back, which he considered the best part of the fish.
“No,” said Van.
“We will have more left,” thought Ga-ra-ga and his sons. They ate all the fish except the head, which they put aside, and then went to bed. Moving away, Van also lay down.
At dawn, Van crept towards the Ga-ra-gi camp with a long bugoo club in his hands. Ga-ra-ga slept on his back, legs crossed, his knees sticking up. Van hit him on the knees with his baton and ran away.
- Who hit me? - shouted Ga-ra-ga.
His sons heard the cry, jumped up and looked around to find out who hit their father, but saw no one. They ran to Van's camp and found him sleeping. They woke him up and asked him if he had heard anything and if he had hit their father.
“No,” Van answered, “I was sleeping.” .
They were very surprised and alarmed. When the sun rose, Ga-ra-ga ordered his sons to build a boat out of bark to cross to the other side of the river. They went and cut down a large eucalyptus tree and brought it to the camp.
Old Ga-ra-ga said to Van:
— We're going to the other side of the river. Something is wrong in this camp.
Wang replied:
“I’m also afraid to stay here and I’ll go with you.” One of the sons carried the boat to the river, the other carried
old father. When the boat was launched, they put the old man in it. Wang said:
“You guys swim ahead, and I’ll transport your father in the boat.”
The boys swam across the river, and Van took the head of the cod, chanted a spell over it and placed it at the edge of the water. Then he got into the boat and sailed away.
In the middle of the river, where there was a strong current, Van overturned the boat. Seeing this, the old man's sons rushed from the other bank into the water to save their father. But he drowned before they reached him and was carried away by the current.
Then they said:
“We will kill Van because he drowned our father.”
They turned and chased Van: he quickly swam towards the shore from which he had set sail. Having reached the shore, he ran to the old camp, but not before grabbing the head of a cod and, waving it towards the boys, sang:
Everyone who steals from Van,
Misfortune will befall.
The boys tried to swim to the shore, but the more they swam, the more it seemed they had to swim. Van was a great virinun and made the river become very wide. He sang all the time:
Everyone who steals from Van,
Misfortune will befall.
Finally, the boys realized that they could not swim to this shore and that Van was a virinun. Fearing for their lives, they turned and swam to the other shore, where they got out safely. They never saw Van again, but told their tribe what he had done. Let everyone be his enemies!
Meanwhile, Van moved on, chuckling his strange laugh, “Wa! va!”, always meaning perfect or impending evil. Sometimes he laughed for too long, which meant that, having done one evil deed, Van was thinking about what was to come.
The next camp Van approached belonged to Mullian, who lived with his two wives. Mullian invited Van to fish and, when they approached the river, he said to him:
- Climb into this hollow log in the water, there is cod in it. I will stand here with a dindi spear ready to pierce the fish when you drive it out of there.
Van climbed into the hollow log, but found no fish, and when he got out of there, Mullian struck him in the chest with a spear. Feeling the prick of the spear, Van spread his arms and shouted shrilly:
- Wow! wow! wow!
Since then this has been the cry of his family.
Climbing out of the log, Van pulled the spear from his chest and, before Mullian guessed his intentions, pierced him with the spear, pinning him to the bottom of the river, and chanted:
Wow! wow! wow!
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
Leaving Mullian in place, Van headed to his camp, where Mullian’s two wives were located. They asked him:
- Where is your uncle, and where is our husband?
- He's still in the river. They waited for a moment and then asked Wang:
- What is keeping him there?
- I think it's his dindy.
So it was, but the women did not think about it. Night fell, and Mullian did not return. The women realized that Van had taken over the camp. They began to suspect that Van knew a lot and that Mullian would not return.
They asked:
- Did you kill him?
In response, Van sang:
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
For some time Wang remained in the Mulliana camp. One day, a detachment of warriors approached and decided to kill Van because he had captured Mullian’s camp.
Van stood up for the test, the warriors prepared to throw spears at him. The warriors were protected by Borin shields, as Van had taken Mullian's weapon and the warriors thought he would use it.
Weapons rained down around Van, but none of them hit him. He was such a powerful virinun that even the warriors could not harm him. Realizing this, they allowed Van to own Mullian's camp, his property and his wives.
When everything was decided, Wang said to the soldiers:
- I know a good song and I want you to dance to it. I came up with a little dance and I'll show it to you.
Everyone sat in a circle, and Van settled in the center, near the large magical Mingga tree, where a spirit lived, invisible to the warriors. Only the evil Virinun Wang could see him. Van sang softly:
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
Then he danced a few steps, then stopped and said:
- When I shout: “Duma! Duma! I'm thinking! - you must repeat after me: “Duma! Duma! I'm thinking!
Every time Wang said these words, the roots of the Mingga tree cracked, but the warriors did not hear this and repeated Wang's cry while watching him dance. Every few minutes Van shouted again: “Dumu! Duma! I'm thinking! - and the soldiers repeated in response: “Duma! Duma! I'm thinking!
The roots of the Mingga tree continued to crack. Hearing a loud crash after his last scream, Van jumped far to the side, jumping out beyond the circle of warriors, just in time. The huge Mingga tree fell, spreading its branches and covering all the warriors and widows of Mullian with them. Everyone was killed, only Van remained unharmed.
Now, where Mingga grew up, the family of Van gathers all the birds together for a corroboree. At the same time, the crows themselves dance the last dance of the Kwa, and the Bakkandi cats sing for them. The crows dance so wildly that the dust rises to the sky, turning the early morning into a thick fog, at the sight of which the Daens say:
“Last night the crows danced their Kwa dance and the Bakkandi sang.
Van left the camp near the Mingga tree and wandered until he came to a new camp. Here he saw a little boy eating mei-ra, or wild melon. Feeling hungry, Wang said:
- Give me a piece. But the boy answered:
- No, I'm hungry. We didn't have breakfast this morning. Then Van sang quietly:
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
Humming, he approached the boy, asking him for a melon, but the boy kept saying “no.”
Van tried to snatch the last piece from the boy and at the moment when the boy put it in his mouth, he put a magic stone into the melon, which the unsuspecting boy hastily swallowed along with the food. Soon the boy felt a piece stuck in his throat. He went down to the river and drank the water, but the piece remained firmly in his throat. The boy began to cough and choke. He returned to the camp and began to roll on the ground in severe pain. He felt as if the lump in his throat was getting bigger and bigger, not allowing him to breathe. Finally, with a final attack of suffocation, he died. Van sang:
Wow! wow! wow!
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
He covered the boy with a carpet of possum skins and went to dig a grave. Having prepared it, he returned for the body. Approaching the camp, he saw the boy's father, the falcon Mullian, the brother of the Mullian whom he killed.
When the boy's father came closer, Van began to cry as if in great grief. He said:
- What made you leave the boy alone? Why didn't you take it with you? He was old enough to walk. Now he's dead. Someone bit him.
Seeing that his son was really dead, the father began to cry. He threw away the food he brought because he could not cook it and eat it. He went with Wang to carve a coffin from a tree trunk. Then they brought the coffin to the camp and placed the child's body in it, covering it with a piece of bark. Then they tied the coffin with ropes made from bark fibers.
At night they lay down on both sides of the coffin and put their hands on the coffin so that the spirits would not steal the body, and in the morning they painted the coffin red and white and carried it to the grave, where Mullian said to Van:
- The hole is small, make it bigger. Van complied with his request. Then Mullian suggested:
“Now lie down in it and see if it’s long enough.”
When Van lay down in the grave, Mullian placed the coffin on it and quickly began to throw earth at it, and soon Van was buried along with the coffin.
After this, Mullian returned to the camp. He sat and thought about his boy and rejoiced that he had avenged him by burying Van, whom he suspected of killing his son. Suddenly he felt that someone was standing near him, raised his head and saw Van in front of him, whom he had just covered with earth.
Van smiled and sang:
Wow! wow! wow!
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
After this, Wang left without saying anything. However, he continued to quietly observe Mullian. One day, when Mullian went hunting, Van went to bed and sent his sleep spirit Mulli-Mulli to kill Mullian. Mulli-Mulli saw Mullian climb a tree after the possum and broke the branch on which Mullian was standing. Together with the branch, Mullian fell to the ground and died.
When Mulli-Mulli returned and Van learned of what had happened, he went on, chanting:
Wow! wow! wow!
Anyone who harms Van
Misfortune will befall.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru