Taranaki
Role: giant · First appears: Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants
In Chapter XVI, Taranaki and Ruapehu decided to fight for Tongariro, whom the text describes as smiling at both her suitors. Ruapehu struck first, covering Taranaki with molten stones and fire. Taranaki then hurled stones back and broke Ruapehu’s highest peak, but Ruapehu attacked again with boiling water and the molten mass of the broken cone.
Burned and blinded, Taranaki fled toward the sea to escape Ruapehu and cool his pain, hollowing a path through the land. Their battle left the land waste and dead, with all the people and living beings around them killed.
Relationship record
Life events
- Taranaki and Ruapehu decided to fight for Tongariro.(Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants)
- Ruapehu attacked Taranaki with molten stones and fire.(Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants)
- With: Ruapehu
- “Suddenly a crashing thunder shook the earth, and bursting forth from the mouth of Ruapehu a fiery mass of molten stones and black hate and fury fell upon Taranaki, covering him with a terrible coat of fire, whilst the flying winds howled and the melted snow-waters fled thundering down into the valleys.”
- Taranaki hurled stones at Ruapehu and broke his highest peak.(Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants)
- With: Ruapehu
- “He now, tearing the air with his roaring cries of pain and thundering howling of rage, threw a tremendous mass of stones at his enemy, and broke the highest cone, the loftiest peak of Ruapehu, so that his looks were not so majestic, and his reach not so far into the skies.”
- Ruapehu attacked Taranaki with boiling water and the molten mass of his broken cone.(Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants)
- With: Ruapehu
- “Then Ruapehu filled himself with the boiling water, and, throwing it out of his mouth down upon Taranaki, it filled all the crevices, and it lifted him, for he himself had loosened his bonds with the earth; and now, darkening day into night, he sent the molten mass of his swallowed cone against his enemy, so that he was compelled to retreat: blinded by steam, burned in his inside by the boiling water, and covered with the molten mass of the cone of Ruapehu he himself had broken.”
- Taranaki fled to the sea to escape Ruapehu.(Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants · 📍 the sea)
- With: Ruapehu
- “He groaned, and rose, and tumbled, and shook himself; and he felt for a way to the sea to cool his burning pain; howling in unbearable pain he had to run, in order to get out of reach of Ruapehu, deeply hollowing his path through the lands.”
- Their fight killed all the people and living beings around them.(Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants)
- With: Ruapehu
- “They two were now the arikis over all the land; but it was waste now, and dead, for the terrible fight had killed all the people and the living beings all around.”
Chapter XVI · The Battle of the Giants
- admired: Tongariro (Taranaki is one of the two suitors.) “Softly then answered the gently ascending Steam-column of Tongariro, smiling and swaying, gold-bordered by the setting sun; smiling at both her suitors.”
- rivals with Ruapehu “At last the two rivals decided to fight for Tongariro!”
- enemies with Ruapehu “Suddenly a crashing thunder shook the earth, and bursting forth from the mouth of Ruapehu a fiery mass of molten stones and black hate and fury fell upon Taranaki, covering him with a terrible coat of fire, whilst the flying winds howled and the melted snow-waters fled thundering down into the valleys.”
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Extracted from the original text of Te Tohunga. Made with Rho MD.