The story of Joromi retold 4
Of course, when Joromi came back home, he began to pack and prepare for the great occasion. When his parents asked him where he was off to, and why he seemed so elated where before he had been dismal, Joromi informed them that he had discovered a new place wherein he could wrestle. The Land of Spirits.
Of course, when his parents heard this, they were shocked and dismayed. “Why would you want to go to wrestle spirits?” they asked. But Joromi would not be deterred. They told his sister, Efun, to talk with him and change his mind. But nothing she said to him was of any consequence, even when she informed him that she was not willing to follow him there.
Next, they told the elders of their village, who informed Joromi that humans did not go to the land of spirits, and if any was foolish enough to, they did not return.
“Then I will be the first,” he cried. “And I will return.” So nothing anyone said could dissuade him. Finally, the day that he would depart for the Land of Spirits came. Everyone wept to see him go, but Joromi said, “what are you crying about? Just you watch, I will return.”
So he set off whistling, his traveling gear on his back. For Efun’s part, she was worried about the hubris of her brother, and resolved to see how she could help him, despite her unwillingness to go to the Land of Spirits. So she secretly told her parents that she would go along with Joromi, although she said nothing of this to him. Instead, she offered to see her brother off to the edge of the forest.
On the way to the edge of the forest, Efun tried one last time to sway her brother from going. But he simply smiled and told her not to worry. At the edge of the forest, brother and sister parted ways. But as soon as Joromi entered the forest, unseen to him, Efun used her powers and transformed herself into a fly, which flew after Joromi and landed on his bag, undetected.
So Joromi traveled for seven days, crossed seven mountains and seven rivers, as he followed the directions of the spirits from which he had heard of the spirit wrestling event. Eventually, he got to a very large river, deep but very slow-moving; it was as though the river wasn’t flowing at all. This, Joromi realized, was the boundary between the Land of the Living, and the Land of the Spirits.
Plunging into the river, Joromi began to swim, with his sister, still as a fly, perched on his head. The water was strangely heavy, and a normal person would have gotten tired and drowned. But Joromi wasn’t normal. Eventually, he made it across the river, wet and tired, but well. Looking around, there was nothing out of the ordinary, so Joromi dried himself, and went to sleep.
When he awoke, he was surrounded by a host of frightening and strange-looking entities, watching him with amazement. Joromi had arrived in the Land of Spirits.
This post was delayed by the lag that prevented my from logging in last night
To be continued...
Thanks for coming!
That little boy,