Week 5 Storytelling: A Ghostly Wife

(The ghost waiting by the tree
and the wife walking past the ghost:
WebSource)

   Once upon a time, there lived a young, handsome Brahman named Zar, and his beautiful wife, Delphia. As they had married at such a young age, they lived with the Brahman’s mother. They lived in an enormous mansion near the river. While their house was grand and large, the Delphia still enjoyed walking down by the river. You see, right on the river, underneath an old weeping willow lived a she-ghost named Ora.
   One day, when walking by the river, the Delphia decided to wander underneath the old weeping willow. While walking, all the sudden, she bumped into something. Frantically, she looked around. When she turned to her right she saw the ghost, Ora. Ora looked furious. Delphia responded, hoping to ease her anger, “I am sorry. I did not see you there.” Ora angrier than ever replied, “This is my home and you entered without permission and yet you apologize only for bumping into me.” With that, Ora lunged at Delphia knocking her into the truck of the old tree. Delphia laid motionlessly for she was injured. Ora then took Delphia clothes, planning to enter her home and take over her life. Off Ora went, to enjoy her new-found life.

    When Delphia awoke, she was terrified that Ora would hurt her further, but she soon came to realize that Ora was nowhere to be found, and neither were her clothes. Naked and afraid, Delphia, quickly scrambled to find some leaves big enough to cover herself and head home. Upon her journey home, Delphia began to ponder about why Ora just left her and did not seek further revenge upon her. All the sudden the stories she had heard about she-ghosts came rushing to her memory and she stood paralyzed in fear. It was an old legend that for revenge she-ghosts would take over the lives of their victims. Praying it was not so, Delphia ran home, only to find Ora in her home, with her husband, and performing her household chores. Stricken by grief, Delphia ran back to the river to clear her head of the ghastly images she saw in her own home. 

   Once Delphia had cleared her head, she decided she would not let Ora just take her life. She then marched back to her home with the goal of reclaiming her life. Delphia knew it would not be possible to convince her family of her identity, so she began scheming ways to expose Ora. She-ghosts have supernatural powers and perform task much quicker and better than mere humans, so Delphia decided to expose the she-ghost this way. She began by leaving a note to her mother in-law, because she had previous experiences with she-ghost. The note said, “That is not Delphia.” The mother in-law received the note and it dawned on her that Delphia had been performing task unusually fast and well. The mother-in-law kept this to herself, but decided to keep a closer watch on Delphia. 

   One day, while “Delphia” was performing her household duties, the mother-in-law asked her to grab something from the next room and what she saw confirmed her fears. When asked to retrieve the object, Ora simply walked through the wall to retrieve the object, as only she-ghosts could do. The mother-in-law decided it was time to tell Zar. Zar then decided it was only right to call an exorcist, since they did not know if Delphia was possessed or if it was a ghost acting as her. The exorcist then confirmed it was a ghost, not Delphia. Delphia, who had been watching and waiting for weeks for this exact moment, bust through door and said, “Here I am! I did not know another way to convince you.” Knowing that this was their true Delphia, they embraced her. The exorcist then made Ora promise to never bother them again, and she agreed. They lived happily ever after.

Authors note: In the original story, the brahman’s wife brushed against the she-ghost and the she-ghost injured her. The she-ghost then took her clothes and went back to her house to take over her life. When the she-ghost arrived, the family did not suspect anything. After a while the mother noticed how the wife was performing task unusually fast so she began watching her closely. After a while she saw the ghost doing things that normal humans would not, but this time she kept it to herself. The next time she saw an unusual behavior she told her son and they called an exorcist, who confirmed it was a ghost and not the wife. They then demanded the she-ghost tell them where the wife was and she did. All this time the wife had been lying inside the tree trunk injured, and when they found her she was weak. The ghost promised not to bother them anymore and they took the wife home and nursed her back to health. The story then ended. I decided to give the wife a bigger role and put the story in her perspective. I did not like how the original story was not personal at all, so I gave the characters names. I also added dialogue to the story to make it more interactive between the characters. I also did not like how the wife played no role in the original story, so instead of making her injured so bad that she just stayed in the trunk I decided to make her the main character. I also decided to make her the one to fill the family with suspense, because it made no sense to me how the mother-in-law just decided to watch her closer since she was performing task better than usual. Overall, I feel like I did not change the story much, I just put it in a character’s perspective.

Bibliography: Folk-Tales of Bengal: A Ghostly Wife by Rev. Lal Behari Day. Web Source.