Great Australian Stories

by Graham Seal

  ‘“Yes.”

  ‘“Well, you cook the little dog. Put him in the pot, don’t put in the little girl at all, and when he sings out for the toes, tell him you longed for the toes and you ate them. And when he sings out for the fingers tell him you longed for the fingers and you ate them.”

  ‘That night, this king, he was really a giant you know, comes home. “Where’s me tucker, wife? I’m longing to eat this little girl.” And she said, “All right, husband, I’ve got her cooked there in the pot in the oven.” “Well, dish it out, I want the toes.” She said, “I longed for the toes and I ate them.” “Well, I want the fingers!” “I longed for the fingers and I ate them. There you are, you can have the rest of it.” The giant was very happy after he ate the little dog, because he thought it was the little girl. And he said, “Thanks, wife, you’re a good wife. After that I’ll sleep happy.”’

  When the witch asked for that tale, Gothy said, ‘I can’t give it while that poor man’s all tied up with chains in the corner. If you let him go, he won’t run away—it’ll be OK.’ ‘All right,’ said the old woman to Gothy. ‘I want another tale.’ So he said, ‘No, you’ll have to let one of the other men go every time I tell a story.’ Anyhow, he told it, and in the finish she said, ‘Do you know who that little girl was? It was my little daughter, she’s a big grown-up now. Thanks, Gothy, you saved her life, and I think that youse can have the horse.’ And she gave them three girls to go home with and take them for their wives then.

  The three horses were found, and they went home leading the black horse along the road. And the old Gothy Duff just disappeared into the bushes the way he come about. But when they were getting near to the town where they lived, and where their poor old mother was still standing on the steeple with a sheaf of hay one side and a needle on the other, she was that overjoyed to see them that she fell off the steeple and broke her neck. Anyhow they stuck three spoons in the wall and they drank tea until they was black in the face, and if they didn’t live happy, we may.

  LYING—IN ITS CREATIVE form—is common in stories told out loud. Tall tales are staples of the frontier traditions of Australia and the United States, which have produced some stupendous liars, boasters and yarn-spinners, among them Davy Crockett and Mike Fink in the US and Crooked Mick and Lippy the Liar in Australia.

  Tall tales may be told about anyone and anything, of course, though Australians have tended to focus on unusual animals. Modern forms of bulldust, such as the urban legend, include almost-believable tales about sex as well as the dreadful things that might happen to you on the dunny.

  What a hide!

  This story is attributed to a famous northwestern yarn-spinner known as ‘Lippy the Liar’. Lippy was a shearer’s cook. He’d grown up, or so he said, living with his mother on a cockatoo farm.

  We was so poor we lived on boiled wheat and goannas. The only thing we owned was an old mare. One bitter cold night Mum and me was sittin’ in front of the fire tryin’ to keep from turnin’ into ice blocks, when we hear a tappin’ on the door. The old mare was standin’ there, shiverin’ and shakin’. Mum said, ‘It’s cruel to make her suffer like this; you’d better put her out of her misery.’

  Well, I didn’t want to kill the old mare, but I could see it was no good leavin’ her like that. So I took her down to the shed. We was too poor to have a gun, so I hit her over the head with a sledgehammer. Then I skinned her and pegged out the hide to dry.

  About an hour later, we’re back in front of the fire when there’s another knock on the door. I open it, and there’s the old mare standin’ there without her hide. Me mother was superstitious and reckoned that the mare wasn’t meant to die and that I’d better do somethin’ for her. So I took her back down the shed and wrapped her up in some sheep skins to keep her warm.

  And do you know, that old mare lived another six years. We got five fleeces off her and she won first prize in the crossbred ewes section of the local agricultural show five years runnin’.

  The split dog

  One of Australia’s most popular bush tall tales—and one also widely told in Britain and America—involves a hunter and his dog. In the local version, one day, the hunter wounds a kangaroo, and his dog tears off to locate it. The dog either runs through some barbed wire or across an opened tin left by some careless camper, and is cut in half from head to tail. Unperturbed, the hunter puts the two halves of the dog back together. In his haste, however, he connects them the wrong way round, leaving the dog with two legs on the ground and two sticking up in the air. This does not slow down the dog. It continues chasing down the roo until he gets too tired, whereupon he simply rolls over and continues running with the other two legs. When it finally catches the roo, it bites both ends of the animal at once.

  Drop bears

  Drop bears are mythical creatures of Australian tall-tale tradition that fall from the trees onto unsuspecting bush walkers. They are often described as koala-like, with large heads and sharp teeth. They serve as a peg around which brief yarns can be spontaneously spun, usually cautionary tales for tourists and new migrants. This is not unique to Australia, though Australians do seem to relish giving new arrivals a hard time. This particular drop-bear yarn includes parenthetical comments by the teller on exactly how to tell the tale for maximum effect.

  I was working at . . . the hardware shop in 1987 when some Pommy backpackers came in to get some fly screen to cover the bull bar of their Dodge van to stop the insects clogging the radiator. A bit of a slow day, so I helped them attach it. When I was finished, I stood up and stated, ‘That’ll stop anything from a quokka to a drop bear.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Well, a quokka is a small wallaby looking thing from Western Australia.’

  ‘Yeah, but what’s a drop bear?’ (Made them ask.)

  ‘You guys don’t know what a drop bear is?’ (Disbelief at their lack of knowledge.) ‘OK, they are a carnivorous possum that lives in gum trees but then drops out of the branches, lands on the kangaroo or whatever’s back, and rips their throat out with an elongated lower canine tooth. Sort of looks like a feral pig tusk. Then laps the blood up like a vampire bat.’ (A couple of references to existing animals with known characteristics.)

  ‘My God. Have you ever seen one?’

  ‘Well, not a live one. During the expansion of the 1930s the farmers organised drives because they were killing stock. There is a stuffed one in the museum in town.’ (Offering verification if they want to stay another day. But they had already established they were heading for Mount Isa as soon as I was finished.) ‘They’re not extinct but endangered; just small isolated groups now.’ (More believable that there are only limited numbers as opposed to saying they are everywhere.)

  ‘Really, whereabouts?’

  ‘Here in Queensland; well the western bits at least.’ (Which direction are they heading? Townsville to Mt Isa, i.e. west.)

  ‘But how will we know if it’s safe to camp?’ (Concern now; they can’t afford motels.)

  ‘Oh, well, it’s a local thing. As you’re going through the last town before you’re gunna stop for the night, just go into any pub and ask what the drop-bear situation is like. Bye . . . have a nice trip.’

  (Jeez, there are some bastards in this world.)

  In one drop-bear story from Queensland, the creature is said to have size 10 feet, which it uses to kick in the head of its unfortunate victims. There have been a band and an online gaming sports team named the Drop Bears, and the dangerous little beasts also lead a busy life on the internet.

  Hoop snakes

  Hoop snakes inhabit the same mythical dimension as drop bears and giant mosquitoes. Said to put their tails in their mouths and roll after their intended victims, they have been rolling through Australian tradition since at least the mid nineteenth century. Here’s a typical example:

  Well, there I was, slogging through this timber country, a
nd just as I gets to the top of the hill I almost steps on this bloody great snake. Of course, I jump backwards pretty smartish-like, but the snake comes straight at me, so off I went back down the hill, fast as I could go. Trouble was, it was a hoop snake. Soon as I took off, the bloody thing put its tail in its mouth and came bowling along after me. And it was gaining on me, too—but just as I reached the bottom of the hill, I jumped up and grabbed an overhanging branch. The hoop snake couldn’t stop. It just went bowling along and splashed straight into the creek at the bottom of the hill and drowned. Well, of course it’s a true story. I mean—if it weren’t true the snake would have got me and I wouldn’t be telling you about it, would I?

  Hoop snakes are also native to North America, where they sometimes wriggle into tales of Pecos Bill, the superhuman cowboy who bears some resemblance to the Australian shearers’ hero Crooked Mick.

  Giant mozzies

  Australia is also inhabited by mosquitoes that wear hobnailed boots, carry off cows and bullocks, and may be seen later picking their teeth with the beasts’ bones. This anonymous twentieth-century ballad tells of a particularly vicious New South Wales variety.

  Now, the Territory has huge crocodiles,

  Queensland the Taipan snake

  Wild scrub bulls are the biggest risk

  Over in the Western state.

  But if you’re ever in New South Wales,

  Round Hunter Valley way

  Look out for them giant mozzies,

  The dreaded Hexham Greys.

  They’re the biggest skeetas in the world,

  And that’s the dinkum truth

  Why, I’ve heard the fence wire snappin’

  When they land on them to roost.

  Be ready to clear out smartly

  When you hear the dreaded drone—

  They’ll suck the blood right out ya’ veins

  And the marrow from ya’ bones.

  Now some shooters on the swamp one night,

  Waiting for the ducks t’ come in,

  Loaded their guns in earnest

  At the sound of flappin’ wings.

  As the big mob circled overhead

  They aimed and blasted away,

  But by mistake they’d gone and shot

  At a swarm of Hexham Greys.

  And a bullocky in the early days,

  Bogged in swampy land,

  Left his team to try and find

  Someone to lend a hand.

  When he returned next morning,

  He found to his dismay,

  His whole darn team had perished,

  Devoured by Hexham Greys.

  Oh his swearin’ they say was louder

  Than any thunderstorm

  When he saw a pair of Hexham Greys

  Pick their teeth with his leader’s horns.

  And ya’ know, twenty men once disappeared—

  To this day they’ve never been found—

  They’d been workin’ late on a water tank

  By the river at Hexham town.

  The skeetas were so savage,

  The men climbed in that tank’s insides,

  Believin’ they’d be protected

  By the corrugated iron.

  When the skeetas bit right through that tank,

  Determined to get a meal,

  The apprentice grabbed his hammer,

  Clinched their beaks onto the steel.

  Well, it wasn’t long before they felt

  That big tank slowly rise,

  Them skeetas lifted it clear from the ground

  Then carried ’em into the sky.

  Well, they’re just a few of the facts I’ve heard,

  Concernin’ the Hexham Greys

  Passed on to me by my dear old dad,

  Who would never lie they say.

  So if you are in New South Wales,

  Round Hunter Valley way

  Look out for them giant mozzies,

  The dreaded Hexham Greys.

  There is a three-metre-tall statue of a grey mosquito outside the Hexham Bowling Club, near Newcastle. The locals say it is a life-sized model.

  Dinkum!

  A perennial favourite is the yarn in which an Australian one-ups an American skiter—often quite a feat. This example is from World War I:

  In a London café last month a soldier who hailed from the other side of Oodnadatta fell into a friendly argument with an American, as to the relative greatness of the two countries.

  ‘Wal,’ said the Yankee, ‘that bit o’ sunbaked mud yew call Australia ain’t a bad bit o’ sile in its way, and it’ll be worth expectoratin’ on when it wakes up and discovers it’s alive, but when yew come to compare it with Amurrica, wal, yer might ’swell put a spot o’ dust alongside a diamond. Y’see, sonny, we kinder do things in Amurrica; we don’t sit round like an egg in its shell waitin’ fer someone tew come along and crack it; no, we git hustling’ till all Amurrica’s one kernormous dust storm kicked up by our citizens raking in their dollars. Why, there’s millions of Amurricans who ’ave tew climb to the top of their stack o’ dollars on a ladder every morning, so’s they ken see the sun rise. We’re some people!’

  The Australian took a hitch in his belt, put his cigarette behind his ear, and observed:

  ‘Dollars! Do yer only deal in five bobs over there! We deal in nothin’ but quids [pounds] in Australia. Anything smaller than a quid we throw away. Too much worry to count, and it spoils the shape of yer pockets. The schoolboys ’ave paperchases with pound notes. Money in Australia! Why, you can see the business blokes comin’ outer their offices every day with wads of bank notes like blankets under each arm. I remember before I left Adelaide all the citizens was makin’ for the banks with the day’s takin’s, when a stiff gale sprung up pretty sudden. Them citizens let go their wads ter ’old their ’ats on and immediately the air was full of bank notes—mostly ’undred quidders. Yer couldn’t see the sun fer paper. The corporation ’ad to hire a thousand men ter sweep them bank notes in a ’eap and burn ’em. Dinkum!’

  The exploding dunny

  This is an update of an old bush yarn from the days before septic tanks and sewers. Back then, the dunny was a hole in the ground. Every week or two, as the hole began to fill, kerosene would be poured in to disguise the smell and aid decomposition. As the yarn used to go, one day someone mistakenly poured petrol down the hole and the next person to use the dunny dropped his still-lit cigarette butt. The resulting explosion blew up the dunny, its contents and the smoker too.

  In the modern version, the woman of the house is trying to exterminate an insect, often a cockroach. She throws it into the toilet bowl and gives it a good spray of insecticide. Her husband immediately uses the loo, drops his cigarette butt and gets a burned backside when it ignites the flammable mix of gases and chemicals.

  With badly burned rear and genitals, the husband is in need of hospitalisation. When the ambulance arrives, the ambulance men are so amused that they cannot stop laughing. They get the husband on to the stretcher, but on the way out their laughter becomes uncontrollable. They drop the stretcher. The burned husband hits the concrete floor and breaks his pelvis.

  The continued popularity of this fable is perhaps due to its message that even the most mundane activities can be dangerous.

  The well-dressed roo

  There are a good many bush yarns about kangaroos mimicking the actions of humans. This one was probably not new when it was published in a 1902 book of humour titled Aboriginalities. It was still being told in the 1950s about visiting English cricket sides and in the mid-1980s about an Italian America’s Cup team in Western Australia. It has been frequently aired in the Australian press.

  A group of tourists is being driven through the Outback. The bus runs down a kang
aroo, and the driver stops to assess the damage. The tourists, excited by this bit of authentic Australiana, rush out to have a look. After the cameras have clicked for a while, someone gets the bright idea of standing the dead roo against a tree and putting his sports jacket on the animal for a novel souvenir photo.

  Just as the tourist is about to snap his photo, the roo, only stunned by the bus, returns to consciousness and leaps off into the scrub, still wearing the tourist’s expensive jacket—with his wallet, money, credit cards and passport in the pocket.

  This tale of a supposedly dumb animal meting out poetic justice to a dumb human has many international variations, including the American bear that walks off into Yellowstone Park carrying a tourist’s baby, and the deer hunter who loses his rifle after placing it in the antlers of a deer he has just shot. Versions are also told in Germany and Canada. But Australia’s is better, of course.

  Loaded animals

  The ancestry of the ‘biter bitten’ yarn goes back at least as far as the Middle Ages. It’s known in Europe and in India. Probably Australia’s best-known version is Henry Lawson’s ‘The Loaded Dog’:

  Dave Regan, Jim Bently, and Andy Page were sinking a shaft at Stony Creek in search of a rich gold quartz reef which was supposed to exist in the vicinity. There is always a rich reef supposed to exist in the vicinity; the only questions are whether it is ten feet or hundreds beneath the surface, and in which direction. They had struck some pretty solid rock, also water which kept them baling. They used the old-fashioned blasting-powder and time-fuse. They’d make a sausage or cartridge of blasting-powder in a skin of strong calico or canvas, the mouth sewn and bound round the end of the fuse; they’d dip the cartridge in melted tallow to make it water-tight, get the drill-hole as dry as possible, drop in the cartridge with some dry dust, and wad and ram with stiff clay and broken brick. Then they’d light the fuse and get out of the hole and wait. The result was usually an ugly pot-hole in the bottom of the shaft and half a barrow-load of broken rock.