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Deereeree (the Wagtail) was a widow and lived in a camp alone with her four little girls. One day Bibbee (woodpecker) 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: "Deereeree (willy wagtail), 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 someone walking about and was afraid, because 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." |
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At last Bibbee said; "If you are so frightened, marry me and live in my camp. I will take care of you." Deereeree said that she did not want to marry, and night after night her plaintive cry of "Wyah, wyah, Deereeree, Deereeree", was heard. Again and again Bibbee pressed Deereeree to share his camp and marry him, but Deereeree always refused. The more Deereeree refused the more Bibbee wished to marry her. Bibbee used to wonder how he could induce Deereeree to change her mind. At last Bibbee thought of a plan of surprising Deereeree into giving her consent. Bibbee set to work and made a beautiful and many coloured arch, which, when it was made, he called Euloowirree (rainbow), and he placed it right across the sky, reaching from one side of the earth to the other. |
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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 wonderful rainbow, she thought something dreadful must be going to happen. Deereeree was terribly frightened, and called aloud: "Wyah, wyah." In her fear she gathered her children together, and fled with them to Bibbee's camp for protection. Bibbee proudly told her that he had made the rainbow, just to show how strong he was and how safe Deereeree would be if she married him. But if Deereeree would not, she would see what terrible things he would make to come on the earth, not just a harmless and beautiful roadway across the heavens, but things that would burst from the earth and destroy it. |
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By working on Deereeree's mixed feelings of fear of his prowess, and admiration of his skill, Bibbee gained his desire, and Deereeree married him. When they died, long afterwards, Deereeree was changed into the little willy wagtail who may be heard through the stillness of the summer nights crying her plaintive wail of "Deereeree, wyah, wyah, Deereeree." Bibbee was changed into the woodpecker, or climbing tree bird, who is always running up trees as if he wanted to be building other ways to the than the famous roadway of his Euloowirree, the building of which had won him his wife. |
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