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Myths & Legends

King Midas Judges a Music Contest

After finally ridding himself of the Golden Touch, King Midas had now no wish for golden riches, nor even for power. He wished to lead the simple life and to listen to the piping of Pan along with the goatherds on the mountains or the wild creatures in the woods. Thus, it befell that he was present one day at a contest between Pan and Apollo himself.

Pygmalion and the Statue

In days when the world was young and when the gods walked on the earth, there reigned over the island of Cyprus a sculptor-king, and king of sculptors, named Pygmalion. In the language of our own day, we should call him “wedded to his art.” In woman he only saw the bane of man.

Echo and Narcissus

When all the world was young, and nymphs and fauns and dryads dwelt in the forests, there was no nymph more lovely and sweet than she whose name was Echo. Diana would smile on her for her fleetness of foot when she followed her in the chase, and those whom she met in the leafy pathways of the dim, green woods, would pass on smiling at the remembrance of her merry chatter and her tricksy humor.

King Midas and the Golden Touch

King Midas ever longed for more gold, that could buy him a place in the world that no descendant of a long race of kings should be able to contest. And from Olympus the gods looked down and smiled and vowed that Midas should have the chance of realizing his heart’s desire.

Pegasus and the Chimera

Once, in the old, old times, a fountain gushed out of a hillside, in the land of Greece. And, for aught I know, after so many thousand years, it is still gushing out of the very selfsame spot. At any rate, there was the pleasant fountain, welling freshly forth and sparkling down the hillside, in the golden sunset, when a handsome young man named Bellerophon drew near its margin.

Mayrah the Wind that Blows Winter Away

Mayrah, the Wind that Blows Winter Away

At the beginning of winter, the iguanas hide themselves in their homes in the sand; the black eagle hawks go into their nests; the garbarlee or shingle-backs hide themselves in little logs, just big enough to hold them; the iguanas dig a long way into the sand and cover up the passage behind them, as they go along. They all stay in their winter homes until Mayrah blows the winter away.

Wirreenun the Rainmaker

Wirreenun the Rainmaker

The country was stricken with a drought. The rivers were all dry except the deepest holes in them. The grass was dead, and even the trees were dying. The young men of the Noongahburrah murmured among themselves, at first secretly, at last openly, saying: “Did not our fathers always say that the Wirreenun could make, as we wanted it, the rain to fall? Yet look at our country—the grass blown away, no doonburr seed to grind, the kangaroo are dying, and the emu, the duck, and the swan have flown to far countries.

The Bunyip

The Bunyip

In the years before history-the Alcheringa-before the river Murray was made and only a depression existed, a Bunyip visited the place. He came just at nightfall, and he sat on the bank opposite the camp. He was the color of the gumtree that afforded him shelter and something to lean against.