Long, long ago when people were only first coming to Aotearoa, there lived many birds and creatures. There was a fantail and a pukeko. They both were cheeky but fantail had no tail and pukeko hated water. Now at the time some Maori were facing patupaiarehe, and fantail and pukeko were going to make a long journey to pull a huge prank.
As they were about to leave the bush the wise elder fantail said “This isn't good, you are going to spend a week away just to pull a prank.” “Well it might be longer.” said pukeko “DO NOT G-” but they had already left. Now in those days moa were alive and looked like dinos to fantail. It didn’t help that he came across a herd of them. Also birds like the quad-winged flesh eater lived, let me make a list of some: The bat-bird, The Zombird and the Ironbite e.g. Fantail and pukeko came across a lot more. Now at the edge of the long shoots valley or a lot of long grass they stopped.
They then wandered to the village because at the time a delicious feast should have been in the making and they would screech and scare the villagers and make them mess up the food but nothing was happening. The next couple minutes though in the background they heard lots of noises. They also didn’t know what was happening because they were distracted by a mouse. “Ahhhh! Giant mutant chickens!” said Jeffrey the mouse.
Then they looked up and saw an albatross flying away with seven nets. Then the villagers saw them and a chase scene started as pukeko leaped over logs and ducked under roots, and the 3 day journey became a 3 hour journey. To lose them pukeko ran in a different direction but fantail was still being chased instead and the villagers started throwing things. One container splashed a lot of glue on his behind. Suddenly an ancient fan was thrown and stuck to the glue. The villagers started going back and eventually there were no more chasing fantail.
Now pukeko fell into a swamp by accident by tripping over and knocking himself out and woke up stuck. Days passed and he started liking the water lapping at his feet, he eventually got unstuck but decided to stay. Fantail got back sad that his friend was lost and the new tail didn’t have feathers, the elder fantail cast a spell making feathers grow over the fan but he was still sad. Months later fantail got a letter from pukeko that said: Enjoying the swamp life, come over sometime! Pukeko. Fantail suddenly felt really happy and joyful inside. Nowadays fantail and pukeko visit each other and fantail has a tail, and that's why fantail has a “fan” tail.
