Ese Obara-Meji

I I
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In those olden days the people of Okoro were frightened
by weird and awful sounds, coming from an anthill in the bush.
For somewhere in that anthill, there along the path,
something was hiding, disquietingly, making sounds,
rumbling and grumbling away, sonorously, scaring
the travelers, who cried out loudly:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
The frightened people went up to their king, the Onirese.
The Onirese in his turn called Ifa for his help.
They told the king to take an axe, a wooden axe, quite heavy,
and take a hoe, a supple twig, and go into the bush,
together with his people, to soundly wreck the anthill,
and there they went, the heroes, singing a warrior's song:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
Although they were scared shitless, the people of Okoro
under the well-meant guidance of their Onirese king,
went digging in the anthill, discovered at its bottom
a rattlesnake whose rattlings, being muffled by the anthill,
had made the sounds that scared them, prompting them to cry in fear:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
And so the problem solved itself, for that's the way of problems.
The rattlesnake, exposed now by the people of the town,
turned out to be unable to kill a single human,
but yet it didn't want to stop its rumbling, grumbling sounds.
The people of Okoro, having had enough of snake sounds,
then beat the rattlesnake to death, and walked back home again.
They sang ('t was for the last time) the song they had sang often:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
Ifa now says to all of us that though we may feel threatened,
the threat is quite unreal and there's nothing there to fear
but fear itself. Though things unknown may seem a little scary,
the second that we face our fears they simply fade away.