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In a beautiful island that lies in the southern seas, where
chains of gay orchids bind the trees together, and the days and
nights are equally long and nearly equally hot, there once lived
a family of seven sisters. Their father and mother were dead, and
they had no brothers, so the eldest girl ruled over the rest, and
they all did as she bade them. One sister had to clean the house,
a second carried water from the spring in the forest, a third
cooked their food, while to the youngest fell the hardest task of
all, for she had to cut and bring home the wood which was to keep
the fire continually burning. This was very hot and tiring work,
and when she had fed the fire and heaped up in a corner the
sticks that were to supply it till the next day, she often threw
herself down under a tree, and went sound asleep.
One morning, however, as she was staggering along with her bundle
on her back, she thought that the river which flowed past their
hut looked so cool and inviting that she determined to bathe in
it, instead of taking her usual nap. Hastily piling up her load
by the fire, and thrusting some sticks into the flame, she ran
down to the river and jumped in. How delicious it was diving and
swimming and floating in the dark forest, where the trees were so
thick that you could hardly see the sun! But after a while she
began to look about her, and her eyes fell on a little fish that
seemed made out of a rainbow, so brilliant were the colours he
flashed out.
'I should like him for a pet,' thought the girl, and the next
time the fish swam by, she put out her hand and caught him. Then
she ran along the grassy path till she came to a cave in front of
which a stream fell over some rocks into a basin. Here she put
her little fish, whose name was Djulung-djulung, and promising to
return soon and bring him some dinner, she went away.
By the time she got home, the rice for their dinner was ready
cooked, and the eldest sister gave the other six their portions
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Fairytales 
