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Bats In My Belfry

© Larry Low

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While surfing the Net, just to see what others had written about folklore, I came across a folklore site about bats. I won't join you because when it comes to bats, I am a bit timid. I am sure that you will find the stories on the bat site quite rewarding. Enjoy!

There are two bat stories by Apache Indians: one from the Apaches of Texas and the other by the Apaches of New Mexico. There is also an Aesop fable, a story by the Kono people of Sierra Leone and one by the Cherokee Indians.

Bats

I was just about to continue my surf when I asked myself where my fear of bats came from? I did know that I did not particularly like them but I could not for the life of me fathom why. I do remember somewhat vaguely a story about a bat getting caught in some one's hair. Bats are not likely to do that, I perceive on a rational level but still ... Isn't there something about vampire bats? I am not going there. Perhaps by the time I get to the end of this article, I will have a good idea as to where this uncomfortable feeling comes from.

I do remember somewhat vividly an experience with bats, flying foxes they were called and they ate fruit, Ray Fryer, the owner of Urapunga had hastened to tell me. Urapunga was then, a 750 square mile cattle station, as far out in the Outback as you can go and still have a chance of finding your way back although once the land gets ahold of you, it never lets go.

Urapunga Returned to Aboriginals

As the school teacher at this lonely outpost, I had my own house but it was a rather ramshackle affair. There was a back door and a front doorway, which meant that critters could come and go at will. One Saturday afternoon, during the Wet, my wife and I had just come home with groceries from the Mission, fourteen miles down the Roper River by canoe. On the way down, I had run over a croc but it was only a freshie and everyone knows that they are harmless. Nevertheless, the canoe was a bit tippy for a moment or two. Urapunga School

At any rate, having lugged our week's supply of food up the hill, I was startled as I peered in my front doorway. Coiled in the middle of the rough hewn slate kitchen floor was a seven-foot snake just to give the place a bit of Outback ambience. I put the groceries down and reached for the broom. In a few seconds the snake was dinner for the Aboriginals. I was left with a one-foot piece of broomstick in my hand and a question as to how a wimp like me came to be living in the Outback.

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