Suggestions that Sister Agnes was inspired by Ernst are hard to believe. Her settings are not descriptive and most of the stories are those remembered from her childhood. She describes herself as a lover of fairies. They belong to her past and are not invented Australian fairytales. She claims two were told to her by King Barak, one days before he died. She paints Barak, variously called King William, last chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe' or 'Beruk (white grub in gum tree) belonging to the Wurundjeri whose country lay along the Yarra and Plenty Rivers, as a man who will tell a story for the right price, usually a coin. She names him last of his race. It is difficult to read and fills me with a sense of indignation that Barak should be so maligned- and that child readers would absorb this 'truth'. Ernst challenged the treatment of aboriginal people in her tales and in doing so creates an awareness of injustices. A young writer, it would be impossible to formulate a solution to these issues so Ernst stories (i.e.What the Jackass Said) send unhappily.
Read about Barak
Link to Fairytales told in the Bush
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