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The Trial of the Husband Whose Three Wives Restored His Life
In the courtroom, the attorney calls the his first witness. Her name is Dreamer and she is the wife of the accused. She exclaims to the jury that hers is the power of dreams and she had had a dream about the death of her husband. She can recall with intricate detail his hunt for the ox that would provide food for their family. She states that the murder happened when the dying ox turned on her husband and pierced his heart with its horns. She dreamt of her husband taking his last breath and immediately new that the three wives should help him. She stated that she told the others when she awoke.
The second witness is Guide, she testifies that upon hearing Dreamers story of her dream, that she was able to guide the wives, through the mountains, over the river, and through the woods to the exact spot where their dead husband laid.
Raiser of the Dead testified last she said that when they saw the husband’s lifeless body, that she used her magical powers to perform a ceremony that brought life back to his body and returned his soul from above. Upon bringing life to his body, all returned to the village.
The husband was called to the stand next. He said the pressure was immense, all eyes were one him in the village as to whose shimbec he would enter first - Dreamer, Guide, or Raiser of the Dead. His wives, at dinner that night, had placed before him three meals - two with foul and one with pig. He chose the dish made by Raiser of the Dead and said that although Dreamer had dreamt he was dead, her dreams did not , result in him being able to eat this meal. Furthermore, he stated that although Guide led the group to his dead body, her gifts did not allow him to eat this meal, but it was Raiser of the Dead whose gifts brought him back to life thus allowing him to eat.
The jury went into deliberation and came back with a verdict that the man was guilty. The jury believed that the man should have put the three meals into one pot and celebrated the fact that it was a result of contributions from all his wives that he was able to be saved.
Writer’s note: The original story How The Wives Restored Their Husband To Life, is told in story form. However, I felt was motivated by the last paragraph which stated that the majority of the people agreed with the choice of the husband, but that the women said that the husband should have put the food from the three pots into one pot. Thus giving credit to each women’s contribution to bringing him back from the dead.
Bibliography: Dayrell, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-nigerian-folk-stories.html
HI Hannah! Just a quick note to say that the black font on the black background is hard on your readers (they have to copy-and-paste or highlight the story to read it). To make the settings go back to the Blogger defaults, just open the post to edit, highlight everything and then use the Tx button to remove the formatting, and that will go back to the default Blogger fonts to fit this dark background. If you are copying and pasting text into a blog post, you need to remember to do that each time.
ReplyDeleteHi Hannah!
ReplyDeleteJust finished reading your story. I love the tale and think it is so intriguing. I like the you simplified alot. It was a very easy read and I really enjoyed it. I did have to highlight the words in order to be able to read them so you might want to change up the color of the font if you want. Either way, I think it's really cool that you were able to take a traditional storybook themed story and format differently to give it a different feel. I think it came out very well!
Hey there Hannah,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story that I just got done finishing reading. This tale was very intriguing, and I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into it. Really admired that you simplified it a lot. One thing that I did notice was that the words were black and the background was black so it was a little hard to read. Other that that it was a great story.
Hey Hannah,
ReplyDeleteGreat job so far, I really enjoyed reading your story. I really like the setup of your page also. I think that others mentioned it but it is really hard to read. I had to copy and paste onto a word doc, so if you make that change it would really help. Great job so far, looking forward to seeing what other stories you choose to tell!