A-supue Na Mali's escape from the lerikos

/ told by Leluo Marua and Erewo, Nikaura, Epi

A man wished to go to a dance, and his wife said,

“I will carry the child and go with you.”

He said,

“No! you stay.”

The man now went away from her, and when he was dancing the woman took the child and went after him along the Teleriko’s road, and there they met the dragon. It said to her,

“My child, you have brought my grandchild, and have arrived, come let us sit down.”

They sat down, and as they sat the child began to cry. The dragon said,

“my grandchild is hungry, now let us cut off a breast, cut it, scrape it (like a yam), and feed the child. “

They remained till evening, and went and sat on a mat outside the house. Then they went inside, and it said,

“Bring my grandchild and we will lie down. “

They lay down, and the mother hung a piece of nautilus shell on her neck. The shell flashed, and the Dragon thought it was the woman’s eye. The male Dragon said,

“Now let us kill our shrimp,”

But the female forbade it, saying,

“No! they are still awake.” After then, when they lay helpless, the male again said,

“Let us now kill our shrimp,”

but the female said,

“Wait a bit,”

and she told the woman to lie in the inner end of the house, but the woman would not consent, but said, You go and lie at the inner end, I, with the grandchild, will lie in the doorway.

The Dragon came to shut the door and took ashes and puffed them in the doorway, and the stones became firm. The dust of the ashes fell on the woman’s body, and she kept it. When they wished to open the door, they again puffed ashes in the doorway. When the Dragon was asleep, the woman now took the ashes and puffed it. The door opened and she got up, took her child, and fled outside, having again puffed the ashes to close the door. She and the child fled, and as the Dragon rose it saw the nautilus shell flashing on the woman’s mat. It thought it was the woman stilly lying there, and it wished to eat her. It bit the stone and broke its teeth, for the woman had fled away. The male Dragon said to his wife,

“ I said to you we should eat her, but you forbade it.”

Then he followed and shouted again,

“Pia yu tamatama pulu pe” (O breast where do you resound fully) and the breast which the child had eaten said, “K-r-r-r,”

and when the dragon had followed them for some distance, he cried again,

“O breast where do you resound fully?"

And it answered again,

“K-r-r-r,”.

The child’s mother heard it making this sound in the child’s stomach, and said,

“What is this?” the child said to its mother,

“ I don’t know ; there is something in my neck, it made this sound.”

The mother took the child up and held up the legs. The breast fell down on the road, and they two fled. The Dragon cried out again, until he came to the place that the breast lay. He called again, and it answered from the ground. Now the two went right away, and the Dragon returned.