Once going down to the shore of the great sea I came upon the
Whirlpool lying prone upon the sand and stretching his huge limbs in
the sun.

I said to him: 'Who art thou?'

And he said:

'I am named Nooz Wana, the Whelmer of Ships, and from the Straits of
Pondar Obed I am come, wherein it is my wont to vex the seas. There
I chased Leviathan with my hands when he was young and strong; often
he slipped through my fingers, and away into the weed forests that
grow below the storms in the dusk on the floor of the sea; but at
last I caught and tamed him. For there I lurk upon the ocean's
floor, midway between the knees of either cliff, to guard the
passage of the Straits from all the ships that seek the Further
Seas; and whenever the white sails of the tall ships come swelling
round the corner of the crag out of the sunlit spaces of the Known
Sea and into the dark of the Straits, then standing firm upon the
ocean's floor, with my knees a little bent, I take the waters of the
Straits in both my hands and whirl them round my head. But the ship
comes gliding on with the sound of the sailors singing on her decks,
all singing songs of the islands and carrying the rumour of their
cities to the lonely seas, till they see me suddenly astride athwart
their course, and are caught in the waters as I whirl them round my
head. Then I draw in the waters of the Straits towards me and
downwards, nearer and nearer to my terrible feet, and hear in my
ears above the roar of my waters the ultimate cry of the ship; for
just before I drag them to the floor of ocean and stamp them asunder
with my wrecking feet, ships utter their ultimate cry, and with it