Kātahi taua wahine ka kī atu ki a rātou, ‘E haere au; me ā he peka ki tētahi taha, ki tētahi taha o te whare, ki te tuarongo, ki [te] roro.’ Kātahi te wahine rā haere tonu; taenga atu, ka uwi3 mai te tāne ki a ia, ‘I tae koe ki ō mātua?’ ‘Ae, i tae anō ahau.’ ‘I pēhea mai rātou ki tō kōrero?’ Tana kīinga atu, ‘E whakaae ana mai rātou kia haere tāua.’ Kua rekareka rawa taua nanakia rā. H[e]o anō, ka haere mai rāua. Te taenga mai, ka karangatia, ‘Haere mai, e te ika nei! Haere mai, e te ngārara nei!’ Ka karanga te ngārara, ‘He riri pea tāu, e te taokete, ki “te iki nei”, pea?’ Ka tomo te ngārara ki roto ki te w[h]are rā. Ko taua ngārara he kumi, ko te whare he kumi anō te roa o te whare; tana totorohanga, rite tonu ki te roa o te whare. Ka hoatu te kai māna; 1,000 ngā kōpae4 kai, kotahi anō kainga, pau katoa i te kainga kotahi. Kua ki tōna puku, kātahi ia ka moe. Tō rātou kitenga atu kua moe, ka karanga tētahi, ‘Ka moe te ngārara nei!’ Kātahi anō ka tahuna taua whare ki te ahi. Na, kua wera taua ngārara rā, kātahi ka tinei ia i taua ahi; tinei noa tōna waha, Kāore i m[at]e te ahi rā; tinei noa te hiku, Kāore hoki e mate te ahi rā; ko tōna weranga i wera ai. Then the woman said to them, ‘I will come. You must pile up firewood on each side of the house, and at the back and the front.’ After this she returned to her husband. When she arived he asked, ‘Did you go to your parents?’ ‘Yes, I went to them.’ ‘How did they treat your suggestion?’ ‘They argue that we should go.’ The vile creature was delighted at this. And so they set off, and when they were approaching the village the call went out, ‘Welcome, fish! Welcome, ngarara!’ The ngarara said, ‘Perhaps you are trying to start a fight with me, my brothers-in-law, with this word “fish”?’ Then the ngarara entered the house. He was sixty feet long, and so was the house; when he stretched out, he was exactly the same length as the house. They gave him food to eat; there were a thousand basketsful of food, and he gobbled them all up in the one meal. Then when his belly was full he went to sleep. When they saw this, someone called out. ‘The ngarara is asleep!’ Then they set fire to the house. Now when the ngarara felt the heat he tried to stop the fire; he lashed around with his head, but the fire did not go out. Then he tried with his tail, but he could not put it out. And so he was burnt to death. 1In former times the fragrant leaves and flowers of the tarata tree, and the gum obtained by wounding the trunk, were gathered by the Maori and used to scent oils with which they anointed their bodies. 2Williams' Dictionary defines the word kumi as (1) a measure of ten fathoms, (2) a huge fabulous reptile. When the woman is asked what kind of a ngarara (or dragon) the creature is, she answers that he is a kumi. Later we learn that this ngarara, or kumi, fits exactly inside a house which is a kumi in length (i.e. 10 fathoms or 60 feet; though if the word had this meaning in pre-European times, it could not have corresponded exactly to the European measure). So in this case at any rate, the word kumi apparently means ‘a huge fabulous reptile some 60 feet in length’. 3Among Ngati Porou ‘uwi’ is an alternative form of the word ‘ui’. 4In the East Coast and Bay of Plenty the small baskets from which food is eaten are termed kōpae.

The late Mr Pahau Milner of Ruatoria, in a similar version of the story which he told me in 1961, explained that the weaker of the two peoples was a vassal tribe, bound to perform such tasks as catching fish for their masters; hence the other tribe's anger when they refused to do so.