Shango And His Battleaxe, Oshe Season 1

Season 6 years ago

Shango And His Battleaxe, Oshe Season 1

Greetings mortal, here again to listen to the tales of my valour?. of the adventures that have made my eternal rival ogun's head swollen with jealousy...which one would you like to hear, was it the day I won my first bride oshun in a wrestling contest,or the day I lost the ability to shed tears in a wager to a gnome of the forest...nay I shall tell you of the day I got Oshe the shameless biter’, my far-famed battle axe from Shokoti the elder smith god to whom I paid in full, the blood and essence of a deity; Elegbara the god of despair, bloodshed and violent deaths, Lanroye the trickster god’s twin.

My axe; ‘‘Oshe Shango’’, it was called the shameless biter because it cuts anything regardless; mortals, monsters and gods, I won it in my nineteenth rains and with it, I slew my first god.

During one of my carefree gambol across Oyo empire as a mortal prince,long before my ascension to orisha, the parties, palm wines and dance festivals drew me to Ipetu, a town at the outskirt of Elegbara’s forest grove. My band and drummers, a body of careless, womanizing rugged youths; sons of wealthy merchants, sons of farmers, nobles and paupers with the same adventurous fire burning in our eyes went with me.

Ipetu was famous across the empire for its dance festivals, the beauty of its damsels and their provocative hips as they wriggle to the beats of the Bata and Gangan drums, few in the empire could match my dance steps when under the spell of the Bata beats, my graceful leaps and acrobatics have sent many a warrior into jealous fits after losing their women to my antics. but at Ipetu, they said the men were like earthworms wriggling in the rain, for their dance styles was renowned all over the empire; drew men from far and wide to partake in their festivals so I led my bands towards the town to compete my skills against theirs and pour red palm oil on their stainless record.

At first, the town folks received me with pomp and pageantry as the talking drums announced my arrival, for a prince of the empire and the inventor of the Bata drum has come to partake in their festivals, then smiles became frowns as I beat them in their game, taking the spot light from her youths as the Bata beats intensifies, the sweat sleek on my torso, Obembe my drummer vent away with abandon, the clouds rumbled and parted like curtains; it was as if the deities peeked down to bear witness to the competition. In droves the other dancers slunk away from the dance arena unnoticed as I held the crowd in a trance and enticed the women folk with my dance steps and masculinity till I had had enough and retired to drink and make merry.