Her foot now spurns the long-backed wave;
The phosphor burns like Pele’s eye,
Or a meteor-flash in the sky.
Finished the prayer, enter, possess!
Footnote 332:[ (return) ] Olewa. Said to be the name of a wooded region high up on the mountain of Kauai. It is here treated as if it meant the heavens or the blue ether. Its origin is the same with the word lewa, the upper regions of the air.
Footnote 333:[ (return) ] O Ahu. In this instance the article still finds itself disunited from its substantive. To-day we have Oahu and Ola’a.
Footnote 334:[ (return) ] Kau, The summer; time of warm weather; the growing season.
The incidents and allusions in this mele belong to the story of Pele’s journey in search of Lohiau, the lover she met in her dreams, and describe her as about to take flight from Oahu to Kauai (verse 4).
Hiiaka’s bath, Wai auau o Hiiaka (verse 7), which was the subject of Pele’s contention (verse 8), was a spring of water which Pele had planted at Huleia on her arrival from Kahiki. The ones with whom Pele had the contention were Kukui-lau-manienie and Kukui-lauhanahana, the daughters of Lima-loa, the god of the mirage. These two women lived at Huleia near the spring. Kamapua’a, the swinegod, their accepted lover, had taken the liberty to remove the spring from the rocky bed where Pele had planted it to a neighboring hill. Pele was offended and demanded of the two women: