The Galah And Oolah The Lizard
: Australian Legendary TalesOolah the lizard was tired of lying in the sun, doing nothing. So he
said, "I will go and play." He took his boomerangs out, and began to
practise throwing them. While he was doing so a Galah came up, and
stood near, watching the boomerangs come flying back, for the kind of
boomerangs Oolah was throwing were the bubberahs. They are smaller than
others, and more curved, and when they are properly thrown they return
to t
Oolah was proud of having the gay Galah to watch his skill. In his
pride he gave the bubberah an extra twist, and threw it with all his
might. Whizz, whizzing through the air, back it came, hitting, as it
passed her, the Galah on the top of her head, taking both feathers and
skin clean off. The Galah set up a hideous, cawing, croaking shriek,
and flew about, stopping every few minutes to knock her head on the
ground like a mad bird. Oolah was so frightened when he saw what he had
done, and noticed that the blood was flowing from the Galah's head,
that he glided away to hide under a bindeah bush. But the Galah saw
him. She never stopped the hideous noise she was making for a minute,
but, still shrieking, followed Oolah. When she reached the bindeah bush
she rushed at Oolah, seized him with her beak, rolled him on the bush
until every bindeah had made a hole in his skin. Then she rubbed his
skin with her own bleeding head. "Now then," she said, "you Oolah shall
carry bindeahs on you always, and the stain of my blood."
"And you," said Oolah, as he hissed with pain from the tingling of the
prickles, "shall be a bald-headed bird as long as I am a red prickly
lizard."
So to this day, underneath the Galah's crest you can always find the
bald patch which the bubberah of Oolah first made. And in the country
of the Galahs are lizards coloured reddish brown, and covered with
spikes like bindeah prickles.
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