For a few weeks some little township is terrified by mysterious bellowings at night, by the tracks of some large beast discovered by day.
Men carry shotguns and women lock their bedroom doors.
Then it is discovered that the Bunyip was just an outsize wild dog, a mad bull or, in one case, a sea-going crocodile that strayed too far south. The scare is over. But the legend of the Bunyip persists. The Bunyip of Australian literature is the mythical Great Australian Novel. From time to time we hear that it has appeared at last.