A long time ago, there lived a man in a small town. His name was Ajao. He was an expert trickster and deceiver and, because of his profession, everyone in the town took him to be the most useless man in the town.
One year, there was a great famine. Within a few months after the famine had started, there was nothing for the people to eat.
One day, as Ajao was wandering about on the outskirts of the town, looking for food to eat, he came upon the shrine of a god. He eagerly entered it with the hope that, at least, there would be a sacrifice and he could satisfy his hunger with it. But to his disappointment there was nothing like a sacrifice, except one old bone which was half stuck into the sand before the god who was the occupant of the shrine.
The bone was not an ordinary one, but a small god.
Unknowing, Ajao ran to the bone and picked it up immediately. As he was about to leave the shrine he heard a horrible caution from one corner of the shrine: ‘Eh! Don’t take that bone away! It is not an ordinary bone as you suppose it to be! Come and put it back in the very spot you have taken it from!’
Ajao was greatly afraid and confused when he heard this warning. He glanced at every corner of the shrine, but nobody was there except the huge god. Nevertheless, as Ajao had not eaten anything for the past few days, he did not pay heed to the horrible warning. Instead, he stubbornly ran with the bone to his house.
Ajao entered his room and shut the door; then he began to chew the bone greedily. To his surprise, as he was still enjoying it, it fell from his hand. And as he was just stretching his hand to pick it up, the bone became active suddenly. It immediately began to throw itself along the ground.
Ajao began to chase it along, trying to pick it up in order to continue to chew it.
Thus the bone was throwing itself along and along until it left the town and came to a big river which was at a little distance from the town. Instead of stopping on the bank of the river, this wonderful bone flung itself into the river and, without hesitation, it sank.
Ajao jumped in the river as well. He dived, and he continued to chase the bone along the bottom of the river.
After a while, the bone disappeared, and Ajao was carried to the deepest part of the river by the current. To his surprise, within a few seconds, he found himself unexpectedly inside a massive building. The massive building was under the river, and it belonged to the Nymph or Water Spirit who governed the river.
‘Who are you?’ the Nymph asked, astonished.
‘I am the son of man,’ Ajao replied with a trembling voice.
‘What do you want here, the son of man?’ the Nymph shouted.
Ajao fearfully explained. ‘Thank you, Nymph. You see, there is a great famine in my town now. So as I was chewing the only bone which I found in a shrine, it mistakenly fell down from my hand. Then it began to throw itself till it flung itself into the river, and I followed it. I simply found myself in this your massive building unexpectedly.’
‘Is that so?’ the Nymph wondered greatly to see that Ajao was so hungry for food that he chased a bone to her house which was under the river.
‘It is so,’ Ajao replied painfully.
‘All right, take this wooden spoon. When you return to your house, ask it to do your work for you. But never come back to me for anything as from today!’ The Nymph gave a wonderful wooden spoon to Ajao which would supply him with every kind of delicious food and drink.
Ajao thanked the Nymph when she gave the wooden spoon to him. Then she told him to sit on a chair, and he had hardly done so when he found himself on the bank of the river. From there he went to his house with the spoon.
As soon as he entered his room, he asked the spoon: ‘Do your work now, wooden spoon!’ And he had hardly asked thus when the room was full of all kinds of delicious food and drink. Then greedily he and his family ate and drank to their entire satisfaction.
In the following morning, instead of keeping the secret of the wonderful wooden spoon within himself, Ajao went to the king. He told him to invite all the people of the town to his palace.
‘For what reason, Ajao, shall I invite all the people to my palace?’ The king was suspicious because he knew Ajao as an expert trickster and deceiver.
‘I wish to feed them with delicious food and drink!’ Ajao replied with pride.
‘You, Ajao, want to feed the people of the town with food and drink in this time of great famine? Or you cannot remember what you came to me for?’ The king was still mistrustful.
‘I say I have enough food and drink to give to all the people!’ Ajao confirmed loudly.
The king still doubted. ‘But I am afraid, Ajao. Even I as king of this town have not eaten now for over four days. How much stranger it is for a poor person like you to get sufficient food and drink to give to all the people!’
‘Your majesty, just do what I am asking you to do,’ Ajao said, compelling the king with his sweet voice.
So in the evening the king’s bell-ringer announced to the people of the town that they should gather on the assembly ground which was in front of the palace. And immediately all the people gathered on the assembly ground while the king sat in the middle of the crowd of people. All were waiting for Ajao to come.
After a while, Ajao came with the wooden spoon, and in the presence of the people and the king and his chiefs, he commanded the spoon loudly: ‘My wooden spoon, do your work now for these people!’
And Ajao had hardly commanded like that when everyone saw the delicious food and drink in front of him or her. Then greedily the people, the king and the chiefs ate and drank as much as they could.
But after a while, when they were intoxicated by the drinks, they started to play so roughly that they did not know when they smashed the wonderful spoon and it split. So the people and Ajao did not think about the spoon. When they became tired, everyone walked sluggishly back to his or her house, with the hope of coming back in the following morning to eat and drink as before.
On the following morning, all the people, the king and the chiefs gathered again on the assembly ground. They were waiting for their breakfast when Ajao arrived. When he came, because he was late, he hastily commanded the wooden spoon to do its usual work. But unfortunately it failed to supply food and drink. He tried all his best, but the spoon could not supply anything because it had split when the people trampled on it the night before.
The people and the king exclaimed angrily, ‘You are an expert deceiver, Ajao, as we already know. We believe you have commanded the spoon not to supply food and drink for us!’
‘I think it is powerless to supply food and drink as it was split yesternight,’ Ajao suggested to the people with fear.
‘If it is so, you had better go back to the same Nymph and tell her to give you another spoon,’ the people roared impatiently.
‘I am sorry, but the Nymph has already warned me not to come back to her for anything again!’ Ajao explained.
‘Don’t deceive or trick us, Ajao!’ the king warned Ajao. ‘Go back to her and, I believe, she will give you another spoon if you show her the split one. But if you refuse to go back to her, it means you disobey my order. So for that you will be beheaded!’ Thus the king forced Ajao to go back.
‘Oh, my head!’ Ajao exclaimed, beginning to blame himself as he started to return to the Nymph reluctantly. ‘If I had known, I should not have told the king anything about the wooden spoon. Instead, I should have been using it secretly for my family and myself.’
When he got to the Nymph, he showed her the split spoon and he explained to her how the people had split it carelessly.
‘Oh, is that how you are, the son of man? All right, I will teach all of you sense today. Take this long whip, and it will serve you satisfactorily even better than the wooden spoon!’ With great annoyance, the Nymph gave the whip to Ajao.
‘But this is a whip,’ Ajao said with a doubtful mind. ‘And as far as I understand, the only work of a whip is flogging people.’
‘No, this whip is not meant so in this case,’ the Nymph explained indirectly. ‘It can also produce a lovely music to which all of you will dance merrily, and none of you will say goodbye to one another when leaving your assembly ground. Goodbye, son of man.’
Then Ajao thanked her and left in confusion. But he went to his own house first, instead of going to the king and the people. He gathered his family hastily in the room, as they felt all near to dying from hunger. He commanded the whip: ‘Do your work now, whip.’
Ajao had hardly commanded the whip when it began to flog him and his family. When it had flogged them severely for nearly one hour, then it stopped flogging them.
‘Yes,’ Ajao said with grief within himself, ‘as the people, the king and his chiefs enjoyed the delicious food and drinks which the wooden spoon supplied yesterday, so they will share the punishment which this whip supplies instead of food and drink!’
Then immediately Ajao took the whip from the floor and went to the assembly ground. The hungry people, the king, and the chiefs were very happy when he returned to them as early as they wanted him to.
Ajao gave the whip to the king. He told him to ask it to do its work, and after that he hastily bolted away.
The king had hardly asked the whip to do its work when it began to flog him and his chiefs and the people. The whip flogged them so severely that not one of them could remember how he or she managed to leave there, and, as the king was running away for his life, his crown fell off his head – but he was unable to wait and take it back.
Thus the whip taught all of the town not to be careless next time.
A few days later, after the king saw that the people had rested their minds, he invited Ajao to his palace. Angrily, he asked Ajao, ‘Why did you bring the cruel whip instead of the kindly wooden spoon?’
‘Well, you see, that was the right thing that the Nymph gave to me instead of the wooden spoon, and that meant she taught us a lesson: that we must take good care of whatever might be given to us,’ Ajao explained calmly.
‘Yes, of course, if we were not careless, the wooden spoon would still be serving us – especially at this time when the great famine continues to besiege our town,’ the king remarked quietly, when he realized their mistake.