It’s Big, It’s Heavy, It’s Wood, And Stone, And Straw, And Australian…

 
Please note it’s Labor Day Next Weekend so as is the case with Holiday weeks, we are stretching submissions til the 6th for the Wulgaru…
 
This one’s a great example of how similar beast legends seem to pop up in all corners of the world. Hailing from The land down under, the Wulgaru seems to be little bit old testament folklore, a little bit German nursery Bogie all packed in with a aboriginal Australian moral message (don’t create killer log monsters to avoid doing work!). The legend goes thusly: There was this character named Djarapa, it seems he was lazy enough to not want to do his work, but not quite so lazy to think building a magical wooden giant to do the work for him was out of the question. So Djarapa gathered his materials, and sat down to work. The core of the being was a whole lot of logs, he carved articulating joints from rocks, gave him pebbles for eyes, straw for hair and an enormous maw full of stone teeth.
 
As is often the case, upon completion of his forest sourced magical colossus, the elements did not immediately spring to life and do his bidding. Instead they simply laid there like one might assume a nicely arranged, pile full of logs, rocks and twigs might. Legend has it that this frustrated Djarapa immensely and there was much kicking, swearing and I would imagine some spitting before he stormed off towards home. At which point he noticed the always humorous, giant footsteps ghosting his own from behind him. Now why the goal of the days project terrified Djarapa so much I can’t say, but he immediately ran for his life, eventually ending at the river. Here Djarapa, bigfoot hoaxer style, set footprints leading into the swiftly flowing abyss. Said Wulgaru, followed said dummy prints into the water until he was entirely submerged and Djarapa felt a momentary burst of victory… until of course said Wulgaru re-emerged from the water on the opposite bank, making his way into the forests that surrounded Djarapa’s village, where he lived on for many years happily devouring any soul who commited or even leaned towards evil…

Our Judge this week was Mickey Kudia, friend of the oft’ submitting Sneurat clan and another one of those folks who have actually found a job doing good for the world we live in. He’s an inner city humane educator for HEART, who’s mission as quoted from their site is “To foster compassion & respect for all living beings & the environment by educating youth & teachers in humane education”. Give the site a read, it’s kinda F’ing cool.