One day they found a huge snake and killed it; which so enraged her that she declared herself their princess, and became terrible to them.

The name of the country at that time was THE LAND OF WATERS; for the dry channels, of which you have crossed so many, were then overflowing with live torrents; and the valley, where now the Bags and the Lovers have their fruit-trees, was a lake that received a great part of them.

But the wicked princess gathered up in her lap what she could of the water over the whole country, closed it in an egg, and carried it away.

Her lap, however, would not hold more than half of it; and the instant she was gone, what she had not yet taken fled away underground, leaving the country as dry and dusty as her own heart.

Were it not for the waters under it, every living thing would long ago have perished from it.