Hello to all readers, I warmly welcome you all to my entry on the season four, week two of the word of the week challenge, titled Invictus.
To be Invictus means to be invulnerable, unconquerable, impossible to be defeated. To be Invictus has nothing to do with one’s physical strength and appearance nor with titles and names. It deals with the mind, having a lion spirit and the belief that victory can always be achieved with the right approach.
I would like to share the summary of a story from the novel Obgoju ode ninu Igbo irumole which translates to The brave hunter in the forest of a thousand demon written by Daniel O. Fagunwa in the year 1938. This novel narrates the adventure story of a hunter who accomplished a mission that warlords never dared. It was considered to be the first novel written in Yoruba language and one of the first novels to be written in any African language.
The summary
There was a kingdom known for strong solders and great warlords, a kingdom that has never been defeated in battle. This kingdom has lived in peace and happiness for decades until a day came when everything started to fall apart. Their farmlands stopped producing harvests as it used to, their women started to have difficulties in delivering safely, the things they considered to be abominable started to occur leaving the kingdom in a state of unrest.
The king called on the ifa priest (the consultant who they believed was closer to their gods). After makings some necessary findings from the gods, he told the king that a sacrifice must be made to restore the peace of their land, and the ingredients for the sacrifice can only be found in Igbo irumole(The forest of a thousand demon).
This forest is known for inhabiting all sort of supernatural being and has a history that no one has ever survived a journey through it.
The king gathered all the strong soldiers and warlords, he asked if any of them would volunteer to embark on the journey to find the ingredients for the sacrifice but none of them did. The adventure seemed impossible to them despite the fact that the king had promised to divide his kingdom into two and give half of it out to whoever would accomplish the task.
In that kingdom, there was a hunter named Akara-Ogun who heard about the adventure and the price for it, and decided to volunteer. He demanded that he should be given a week to consult his ancestors and prepare his spiritual powers for the journey.
The deal day eventually came and he left for the forest, he traveled day and night for weeks occasionally encountering different supernatural beings with different sorts of powers who tried to stop him from proceeding, but he fought tirelessly and conquered every single time he fought. He came back with all the needed ingredients for the sacrifice being the first person to enter the forbidden forest and come back alive.
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It took an ordinary hunter with the Invictus mindset to accomplish a mission that great warlords couldn’t. One can never achieve whatever one doesn’t belief. The story of David in the Bible explains more about that.
1 Samuel 17:34-36
But David said to Saul, “Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a sheep from the flock, I went out after it and attacked it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth; and when it rose up against me, I grabbed it by its mane and struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”
When Goliath invaded , and challenged that the best worrier should come and fight him or else he would overthrown the kingdom. All the warriors where scared of him due to his physical size as a giant but David who was just a little boy and a Shepard came out with his Invictus mindset and killed Goliath.
Thank you for staying with me till this very moment, I hope it was worth the time. Have a wonderful day.