I tossed and turned on my bed. For some reason, sleep eluded me. I could not risk closing my eyes because I imagined dreadful things creeping into my room amd making their way to my bed. "Grandma should not have told us a scary story tonight" I thought inwardly but deep down, I knew where the blame lied. I remember egging my grandma to tell a scary bedtime story. Grandma was skeptical about it but I kept chanting "tell us...tell us.....tell us!!!" with my nine year old voice. She looked at our faces (mine and my cousins), sighed and began with "Story, story" and we all echoed ....."story!". "Once upon a time" she said and we boomed "time....time!".
Story one
This story was about a wolf who went about eating up the villager's children. According to what I remember from the folk tale, the wolf was magical and could converse with humans in the village. In fact, the wolf could mimic any voice it had heard in order to lure kids to its trap and devour them. Thinking about it now in retrospect, it wasn't that scary at all but I guess grandma added a little melodrama to drive her "scary" point home😁.
Back to the story, grandma kept going on about how the wolf would sing a magical song in front of a house and if there were kids in the house, they would start to come out as if enchanted and this wolf would have a jolly time tearing them up from skin to bone. The alarming rate of missing children got to the village chief's ear and he ordered for the best hunters to track and kill the wolf but it was almost impossible because the wolf had magial abilities.
Story two
Seeing how thrilled we were with her story telling, grandma decided to give us a bonus. She told the story of a beautiful but proud girl whose beauty was matchless in all of the seven kingsoms and because of that she became prouder than a peacock. She refused all the men in her village who came to marry her. Not only would she refuse these suitors, she would also haul insults and deragatory words at them. She made these men feel so small and they usually left her father's compound in pain and tears. Her parents begged her to pick one wealthy suitor to marry but she always said "none of them were good enough for her".
Soon, a wandering spirit heard of the beautiful proud girl and decided to teach her a lesson. He then borrowed human skin, arms, legs, jewelleries, riches,, beautiful clothes and anything that would catch the eye. When he was done, he paid a visit to the proud girl's home. Immediately she set her eyes on him, she felt drawn to him and instantly agreed to marry the handsome stranger. After a speedy marriage, the handsome stranger began taking her to his home.
They walked for many days but they never arrived at the strangers home. The beautiful proud girl who was already becoming weary asked her husband about his homeland and that was when she heard the shock of her life. He told her that there was no home anywhere and he had to return all he borrowed. Before her eyes, her husband returned all he had borrwed and stood before her in his true form. He took her captive and kept her locked up in a very tower far away in the forest.
The beautiful proud girl cried and cried, she pleaded with the spirit to let her go but instead, he came to torment her day and night, mocking her for her foolishness. She stayed in that tower locked up for years until her beauty faded away and she had nothing to be proud off again. She became a laughing stock to the spirit who continued to torment her still.
When grandma concluded with the moral lesson of both stories, I yawned and stood up to go sleep. I said goodnight to my grandma and my cousins and walked to my room to sleep. Scary thing was that as soon as I closed my eyes, images of a scary wolf or a floating spirit would flash before my eyes and I would open my eyes to see if it was truly there. It did not help that it began raining followed with the flashes of lightning and booms of thunder. Grandma's story managed to creep fear into my mind. From that day, I promised not to request for scary stories anymore.
Thank you all for reading... Shalom.
Images used are Ai generated.