Read the legend Tobia loves
How Maui Fished Up New Zealand
A clever, mischievous demigod hides in his brothers’ canoe, casts a single magic hook into the deep sea, and pulls up an entire island.
Maui was the youngest of five brothers, small and clever where they were tall and strong, and they often left him behind when they paddled out to sea to fish. One night, determined not to be left out again, Maui hid himself beneath the wooden boards of their canoe before dawn and stayed silent and still until the brothers had paddled far out past sight of land.
When Maui finally revealed himself, his brothers grumbled, but it was too late to turn back. Maui had brought with him a very special fishhook, carved with care and full of old magic, though his brothers only laughed and said the fishing grounds nearby were already picked clean.
A hook cast into the deep
Maui asked his brothers to paddle further out than they had ever gone before, into water so deep and dark that even the bravest of them grew quiet. There, he cast his hook down, down, down, past where any of their usual fish would swim, and waited.
The enormous catch
The line went taut so suddenly it nearly pulled Maui overboard. Whatever he had hooked was enormous, and it took all his strength and cunning, chanting old songs under his breath, to bring it slowly up from the deep. When it finally broke the surface, it was not just a fish, it was the largest fish anyone had ever seen: so vast that its back stretched out across the horizon, covered already in soft green hills and valleys.
The marks the brothers left
Maui told his brothers to wait calmly while he went to make peace with the gods of the sea and sky, so the great fish’s spirit could rest easy. But his brothers, amazed and a little frightened by what they had pulled from the water, could not wait. They began to cut into the fish’s back before Maui returned, and their knives carved deep valleys and jagged mountains into what would have otherwise been smooth and gentle land.
That great fish became the North Island, which the Maori still call Te Ika-a-Maui, the fish of Maui, and its rugged mountains and valleys are said to be the very marks left by his brothers’ impatient blades. Maui’s canoe, the one he hid inside that morning, became the South Island, resting forever beside the fish it had helped bring up from the sea.
The story is still told today, the way it always has been: that even the smallest, most overlooked brother can pull up something the whole world will stand on.
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Maori Lullaby
Play this softly while you read: a traditional handplayed Maori lullaby, the same culture this legend comes from.
More stories, more lullabies
This is one tale in a growing collection of traditional stories from around the world, each one paired, where we can, with a real lullaby from the same culture.