FOLKTALE: The King and His Drum

FOLKTALE: The King and His Drum  

Efriam Duke was an ancient king of Calabar. He was a peaceful man. He had a wonderful drum, the property of which, when it was beaten, was always to provide plenty of good food and drinks. So whenever any country declare war against him, he uses the drum to defeat them in this way he kept all the country quite, and sent his enemies away with full stomachs and in a happy and contented frame of mind.

            There was only one drawback to possessing the drum, and that was if the owner of the drum walk over any stick on the road or step over a fallen tree, all the food would immediately go bad, and three hundred Egbo men would appear with sticks and whips the owner of the drum. Efriam Duke was a rich man. He had many farm and hundreds of slaves, a large store of kernels on the beach, and many puncheons of palm-oil. He also had fifty wives and many children. Every month the king used to issue invitation to all his subject to a big feast even the wild animal were invited. All the people and the animal as well were envious of the King’s drum and wanted to posses it, but the king would not part with it. One morning Ikwor Edem one of the King’s Wife took her little daughter down to the stream to wash her, the tortoise happen to be up a palm tree just over the stream, cutting nuts then one of the nut fell to the ground, just in front of the child. The little girl cried for it and the mother not knowing any better picked up the nut and gave it to her daughter. Directly the tortoise saw this and he climbed down the tree and ask the woman his palmnut was, she replied that she has given it to her child, then the tortoise who very much wanted the King’s drum thought he would make plenty palaver over this matter, so he said to the mother of the child

            “I am a poor man, and I climbed the tree to get food for myself and my family. Then you took my palm nut and gave to your child”, I shall tell the king the whole matter that one of the his Wife stole my food then Ikwor Edem said to the tortoise “I saw your palm nut laying on the ground and thinking it has fallen from the tree and I gave it to my little daughter to eat but I did not still it. She took the tortoise to her husband and told him what had taken place. The king then asked the tortoise what he would accept as compensation for the loss of his palm nut, he offered him money, cloth, kernels but the tortoise refuse and immediately pointed to the King’s drum and said it was the only thing he wanted. In other to get rid of the tortoise the king said “very well, take the drum he never told the tortoise about the bad things that would happen to him if he step over a fallen tree or walked over a stick on the road. The tortoise was very glad at this, and carried the drum home in triumph to his Wife, his Wife and children were very pleased when they heard this, and asked the tortoise to get food at once, as they were hungry, so he beat the drum and immediately plenty of food appeared. When the tortoise had been in possession of the drum for a few week he became lazy and did not work.

            One fateful day, he walked over a stick as nothing happened at that time and eventually arrived at his house and slept off. When he woke up in the morning he was feeling hungry then he beat the drum but instead of food, his house was filled with Egbo men, who beat the tortoise and his Wife and children badly then he ran back to the king with the drum and told him what happen so the king said he would present him with a magic foo-foo tree, and prepared it which brought a lot of food, so his son ask him “father tell me where do you get all this foo-foo and soup from?” but his father refused to tell him, but the envious son tracked his father to the place where he obtain the food, he saw his father arrived at the tree and place calabash on the ground and collected the food for the day, when his father has finish and went home the boy went to the tree and collected much foo-foo and soup, and so broke the juju. The tortoise went to the tree as usual, but he could not find. There was nothing to be seen but a prickly tie tie palm. The tortoise knew that someone had broken the juju. So he returned very sadly to his house and told his Wife what had happened, so evil things started happening to them they were chased away from their house by evil spirit, so they make their home underneath the prickly tree, and form that day you will always find tortoise living under the prickly tie-tie palm tree, as they have nowhere else to go to for food.

The message is all about been greedy and not satisfied.