Emily has retold the legend of Otunui and the Egg.

1. Otunui and the
Egg
By Emily Robinson

2. Rewrite of the story.
Would you like to listen to how Otuni got his name? Good.
There was once four great big beautiful mountains, their names are: Pihanga, Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe. Now this story
all begins with these four mountains.
On one day a very long time ago, the great and powerful sun god Ra was moving across the sky elegantly.
Sunlight began to shine down on the land, on the lush green leafy bushes and the shining, sparkling rivers, on the those great big
four mountains, and the quiet forest.
Ra the great sun god’s bright sunlight shone on to two taniwha on the great big slopes of the mountain.
The taniwha were waiting for their three beautiful eggs to hatch.
Those three beautiful eggs laid in a hollow above the bubbling tummy of Tongariro.
Tongariro’s flaming breath kept the eggs warm and cosy.
TongariroNgauruhoe
Pihanga

3. Continued...
All of a sudden three of the giant mountains started to argue about who should marry Pihanga for of course Pihanga was a girl, and
all three of the mountains wanted to marry her.
“IT SHOULD BE ME TO MARRY HER!” shouted Ruapehu.
“NO WAY SHOULD SHE MARRY AN OVERGROWN WEIRDO LIKE YOU! SHE SHOULD BE WITH ME!” roared Ngauruhoe.
“BE QUIET YOU TWO! PIHANGA WILL BE MY WIFE!” rumbled Tongariro.
Those mountains grew to be more and more angry with each other.
Their sides heaved and trembled, and they showered each other in pouring hot lava and big burning boulders.
The three poor poor taniwha eggs were thrown around and two of them smashed to pieces while Ra the great sun god felt sorry for
one so he picked it up into the air far above the argumentative mountains and sent the poor taniwha egg flying along a beautiful
sunbeam towards the large trees in a nearby forest.

4. Continued...
Right smack bang in the middle of the forest stood a great mighty tree, a green totara tree called Otu.
All the birds in his branches had seen the taniwha egg flying towards them.
“AN EGG! A GREAT EGG! A TANIWHA EGG!” they all chirped quite loudly.
“OTU PLEASE, PLEASE SAVE IT OTU!” they again chirped.
And so Otu reached out with his great big branch arms and caught the egg in the softest leaves he had and placed it on the ground.
So there it lay, sheltered by the trees and protected by the birds.
The egg lay there for quite a while.
All of a sudden, on one day there was a stirring and a twisting and a huge rumbling in the egg.
There was such an excitement in the forest!
So the egg began to crack!
All night, the birds watched as the taniwha egg started to hatch.
The baby taniwha heaved and strained to try to get out of the the well patterned egg shell.

5. Continued...
Once morning came the great sun god Ra shone down his brightest light down through Otu’s leaves and onto the baby taniwha’s
beautiful green/blue scales.
The bright sunlight on the green/blue scales filled the large forest with a grand, beautiful shining light.
All the birds brought the baby taniwha presents: a tawa berry, a juicy worm, silver fronds but unfortunately all the baby taniwha
wanted was his mama.
The baby taniwha cried and cried.
Huge tears rolled down the crying baby taniwha’s face and plopped down onto the ground.
First off the tears made the ground swampy.
Second the tears started to make a small pool, then a little stream that sadly trickled away down the valley.
Far, far away, on the long slopes of Tongariro, the poor mother and father taniwha searched and searched for their lost eggs.
So they cried and cried massive taniwha tears as they looked everywhere but they could not find anything.
Those tears flowed down the to the valley and made a great river of tears.

6. Continued...
Well, something beautiful happened.
So when the stream of the baby taniwha’s tears met the great river of the mother and father’s tears, there was a great and powerful
clap of thunder.
Wonderful colourful sparks flew up into the fresh air to make a huge and wondrous rainbow.
So the wise old totara tree, Otu knew what had happened.
“Quickly, fly and tell the mother and father taniwha about their baby.” Otu said to the fantail.
When the taniwha heard the terrific news, so the mother and father taniwha cried tears of great joy.
They swam in their own river of tears as fast as they could towards the beautiful rainbow.
They were so very very pleased to see their baby taniwha but however sad to know that the other two eggs had smashed.
“Thank you Otunui so very much and for your kindness,” said the mother and father taniwha ever so happily.
“We really want to do something for you and the gorgeous birds in thanks. We promise that this stream of our baby’s tears will
always be pure and clear glistening water. And you Otunui, will have a great and long life among these many amazing trees, with
this moss to keep your roots nice and cool. And these birds will always find a home in your branches.”

7. The End.../ Characters
And so Otunui, which means “Big Otu”, is the name of the place where there was once a great forest of many trees like the great Otu,
and a home of many wonderful birds.
Here are the characters:
1. Otunui
2. Mother taniwha
3. Father taniwha
4. Baby taniwha
5. The birds
6. Pihanga
7. Ruapehu
8. Tongariro
9. Ngauruhoe
10. Ra the great sun god

8. Where is the story set?/ What happened?
Well it’s set in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand, with four great mountains, where two
taniwha (sea monsters) were waiting for their three eggs to hatch.
But then the four mountains argued about something, and flew the three eggs in the air. Two smashed but
Ra saved one and flung it far away into a nearby forest, where Otu caught it with his branches.
After a while it hatched.The birds gave it presents, but it cried a river - so did the mother.
The two rivers collided. It made a big rainbow, so a fantail flew to tell the parents what had
happened, and so they swam the river to their baby and got there and rewarded Otu with pure
water from the rivers and long life,

9. What is the problem and how did it happen
The problem is that three mountains were arguing and three taniwha eggs were
thrown up into the air, unfortunately two broke but one was saved by Ra the great
sun god but it was flown to a nearby forest away from the parents. It happened
because three mountains were arguing about who should marry the lady mountain.
Lady Mountain
Pihanga
Taniwha (sort of)
Ra The
sun god

10. When did the problem happen?/ Why did it
happen?
Well I’m pretty sure it never said when this had happened but I’m sure it was a very,
very long time ago I can assure you.
Uh why did it happen you ask? Well it happened because… uh, to show what fighting
can do to other people that aren’t involved in the situation.
How did they solve the problem?
They solved the problem by crying a river and a fantail going to tell the parents what
happened to the baby.

11. Thanks!
Thank you for sticking through this whole entire slideshow, if you got bored and
skipped to the end I’m sorry it wasn’t exciting enough for you, tell me what I did right
or wrong in the comments if you want. Have nice day!