A MAORI LEGEND.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18617, 12 July 1930, Page 12

A MAORI LEGEND.

In the long ago, before all the trees and plants were made, there was a great feud between the goblins who lived in the seas and the goblins who lived in the rivers. To-nu Taupiri was appointed trumpeter to the river-gob-lins, a trumpeter clad in jade and silver, with a trumpet of purple and rose. • His duty it was to blow his bugle at dawn and sunset that the goblins might work and sleep in safety, without fear of a sudden attack from the enemy. One day when he was idling at the mouth of the river, the princess of the sea-goblins appeared, and being much enamoured of his appearance (for To-nu was a very handsome goblin), she charmed him into going down into the sea-palace with her. Many wonderful things she showed him—carvings of coral in rose-pink and white, banners and ribbons of moist, glistening seawrack, delicate traceries drawn on the sands, stl-ange flowers and fishes, and rare coloured shells, cloaks, made from the shimmering opals of flsh-scales and rock coffers of pearls sufficient to ransom a kingdom. All the wealth of the sea she showed him, with smiles and with flattery, till To-nu forgot aught but her beauty and nearness. “We will let you blow the sunset song of safety if at nightfall you will lead us into the sleeping-place of your tribe, that we may take them by surprise and kill them. Do this and no, harm will befall you, and you may have my hand in marriage and live in the sea-palace with me forever,” said the princess. To her joy To-nu agreed to the proposal.

Three guards escorted him at the hour of sunset. Putting his bugle to his lips, steadily, and without haste, he sounded the warning song ,the war gong. And the river-goblins heard it and were ready.. , Darkness fell. Headed by To-nu and princess who had insisted on accompanying her men into battle, the army of the sea-goblins crept slowly up the river. Suddenly they heard a shout, and the river-goblins came rushing down upon them, and hundreds of the sea-goblins were killed in the confusion and slaughter which followed. The princess, realising that her lover had in some way managed to betray her, plunged her spear into his heart, and then turned it on herself. When the fight was over the friends of To-nu* found his trumpet and hung it on a tree by the river. And for a week there was great wailing and feasting and lamenting over To-nu Taupiri, To-nu the brave; and when his body was laid in the burial place of his father's, the tree on the bank no longer held his bugle, but a thousand little rose and purple trumpet flowers among the sil-ver-green leaves. The pakehas call it the New Zealand fuchsia tree, because of its likeness to the English fuchsia, but the Maoris named it Kohutuhutu, Trumpeter Tree, and if you look closely at the flowers you will find their pollen is not gold, but blue, the deep, ultamarine blue of the sea-depths, wherein To-nu Taupiri was lured by the treacherous beauty of a princess.

Q.: Why is the letter E the most important in the alphabet? A.: Because it comes before everybody and everything.