The story of Joromi retold 2
A normal person would have been afraid, but this intrepid hunter was more interested in getting his cap back from the monkey-like spirit. After all, it was his favorite cap, and he considered it a rather bad event to be parted with the cap, and worse still, when it was stolen from him.
“Give me back my cap!” he shouted angrily at the spirit, which took no notice of him. Initially, he wanted to attempt shooting at it, but he remembered that spirits and other unnatural creatures did not respond as normal fleshy creatures do to conventional weapons. But spirits have quirks, and these quirks can be used to put such beings at a disadvantage.
Now anyone who is familiar with the supernatural will know that a spirit’s quirks can be discerned if one considers the spirit’s lifestyle. So the hunter, aware that the creature preferred trees to the ground, assumed it didn’t like soil. So he picked a handful of earth and threw it at the spirit. It howled and bounded off.
Okay, so the creature didn’t like sand. But it was heading deeper into the forest. Unwilling to still relinquish his cap, the man gave chase. After a while, the spirit looped back, giving the hunter a new suspicion. He pretended as if he was tired, and waited a bit, before stealthily returning to where his traps were. Lo and behold, the monkey spirit was there, in the largest tree above the traps. So that tree was its home.
He gathered more sand and flung it at the creature, which screeched again and bounded off. This time, he didn’t follow. He climbed the tree with a large helping of sand, and waited. Anytime the monkey spirit came back (for the hunter was right; the tree was the spirit’s home, and it was always bound to come back to the tree), he would throw sand at it. This went on for a bit, before the spirit returned and stopped out of reach of the thrown sand.
“Allow me to get to my house,” it wailed.
“Return my cap first,” came the reply.
“But I want your cap,” replied the spirit.
“Then you should have come and politely asked me for my cap, instead of rudely taking it off my head and refusing to reply me when I spoke to you,” said the hunter.
“Alright then,” the spirit said, “what can I give you that will make you truly happy?”
“I would like a child,” answered the hunter, to which the spirit said, “it is God who has such power, but I know of a herb in the forest that if eaten, can cause barrenness to be cured.”
So the farmer parted with his cap for this information, and having received directions, found the herb and took it home. To cut a long story short, nine months later, a son was born to the family. He was named Joromi. A year and a half after this, a daughter was born as well. She was called Efun.
To be continued...
Thanks for coming!
That little boy,