So the Woman passed through the cavern, and the snakes and their young stayed in the cavern; but instead of stirring up the sea they soothed it and made it calm.
The Woman sailed on, and came to the second cavern. And in the second cavern there was a monstrous Bird, the Mother of All Birds. She craned her frightful head through the opening, her iron beak gaped wide; she spread her vast wings in the cavern and flapped them, and whenever she flapped her wings she raised a storm.
The Woman took up her twin pipes and sweetly played upon the left-hand pipe. And from the far shore came flying gulls great and small, and begged the monstrous bird to let the Woman pass with her boat through her cavern, for that she had been a good friend to them and unpicked hemp for them every day.
“I can’t let her pass through my cavern, for to-day I must raise a mighty storm. But if she was so kind to you, I will repay her with even greater kindness. From my iron beak I will give her of the Water of Life, so that the power of speech shall be restored to her.”
Well, and wasn’t it a sore temptation for the poor dumb creature who desired above all things that the power of speech should return to her? But she remained steadfast, and this is what she answered the Bird:
“’Tis not for my own good that I came, but for a small matter—for the Bass that lives in the Unknown Sea. If I have done you a good turn, let me pass through your cavern.”
Then the grey gulls all entreated the Mother Bird and also advised her to take a little nap, and they would meanwhile raise the storm for her. The Mother Bird listened to her children’s entreaty, clung to the wall of the cavern with her iron talons and went to sleep.
But the gulls great and small, instead of raising the storm, calmed the wild winds and soothed them.
So the dumb Woman sailed through the second cavern and came to the third.