Once upon a time, in the great far, far away kingdom of the Golden Stool, among the people of the Buffalo, lived the king’s youngest wife, Eno.
It was not Eno’s choice to marry the king; this was her destiny. She resolved herself to her fate and laboured at being the best youngest wife the king had ever had.
But Eno was discontented; she hadn’t bore a male child yet. Every morning, she asked the gods to bring her a male child so that her husband and her people will look at her favourably.
Years passed and the king took two more wives who bore him one male child after another.
Eno, no longer the youngest wife felt that she had failed. A cloud of sadness gathered around her soul and would not leave, all over the village it become known that Eno, the king’s third wife was sick.
One year, in the season of harmattan and fires, Eno gave birth to a male child.
The king held him and called him Kofi for being born on the day of fertility and Badu, for being his tenth offspring.
Eno’s sorrow lifted, she gave the land a son and heir to continue the lineage, she fulfilled her destiny.
Eno’s joy however was short lived. Soon it became known in the village that Kofi Badu was a child of the spirits.
It was believed that as punishment some children were born possessed by spirits. These spirits gather as spume inside, saturate the body until it reaches the head overflowing, make it dizzy and cause convulsions.
The elders agreed that Eno was being punished for adultery, hence, to appease the gods and avert cataclysm the child was to be returned to the gods.
One dark thick night, a few days before the ceremony to return the child, Eno gathered her children, including Kofi Badu and ushered them into the night.
They journeyed south-east towards the Volta, Eno had heard of “the healer with grace”, one who had studied in lands far across the oceans, she heard that he healed children possessed by the gods.
Eno brought Kofi Badu to “the healer with grace”; he told her the child was not possessed by spirits. Eno did not believe this either.
He said it was an illness and that he could help.
A relieved and grateful Eno realized she had no means to pay the healer, when she told this to him, he slept on it for two days and came back with a solution.
He asked for Afua’s hand in marriage. Afua was Eno’s oldest daughter.
Preparations were made and a fortnight after her sixteenth birthday Efua was married to the healer with grace.
Eno lived the rest of her life content among the people of the Volta.
Her daughter Afua on the other hand struggled with her fate.
So did the generations of women that came after them.
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