Week 2 Story: Encounters with a Ghost

Black and white photograph of a foggy forest setting by user Tim Emerich.
Source: Website.

Encounters with a Ghost

Long ago during a time when the country was ravished by war, a man by the name of Lad set out on a journey to find food and sustenance for his village. In order to accomplish this, he had to travel through a deep, dark forest to get to the nearest town. Being the strongest person from his village, he chose to travel alone even though stories of danger, fright, and horror had been told regarding the forest's existence for decades.

Within the first hour of walking along the forest edge, his ears were met with the sound of another person's voice. He looked around curiously, unsure of what other person would willingly travel through the forest, until a low-flying owl passed near him unexpectedly. "Hmm," he thought, "that must have been the source of the noise," so he continued his journey.

Later that night, Lad grew weary and decided to get some rest. Not long after closing his eyes, the wailing of a woman in the distance was heard, and it was growing closer. Out of fear, he held his body still in an attempt to hide from her. This did not work, however, because the woman approached him and decided to lift and drop his leg several times. "How strange," Lad said to himself, "perhaps if I remain still she will leave." But alas, the woman revealed an old, rusty knife and prepared to cut his foot off! This frightened him enough to jolt his body up and ask her what she was doing, which in turn frightened her so that she ran away yelling into the forest. The next day's light exposed a burial site near where Lad was sleeping, so he figured the ghost of the body within the site is what he had encountered only hours prior.

After traveling through the forest yet another day, Lad grew tired and chose to prepare for sleep. In a similar way to how it had occurred the previous night, he heard the voice of a man singing loudly in the distance. After calling out and receiving no reply, he sat by a fire to cook his dinner and puffed on tobacco. Not long after, the singing man approach him to ask for food and tobacco, so Lad offered a portion to him. As the singing man raised his hand to his mouth to smoke, Lad realized that he was not talking to a man at all, but rather and skeleton made purely of bones.

Once the skeleton realized Lad knew of his condition, he told him that if they were to fight, Lad would gain the ability to rid the world of his enemy and also obtain some horses if he won. Out of want to provide for his village, he agreed and the fight began. Lad noticed almost immediately that the skeleton was weakest near a light source and strongest farther away from it. After a short time of wrestling about, Lad was able to strengthen the fire to the point where the skeleton fell apart in front of him.

Holding true to the skeleton's word, Lad was able to rid the earth of his enemy and gained several horses. This brought peace among the country since there were no longer tensions among so many people, and Lad's village was able to sustain itself using the horses that he brought back with him. Until the day that Lad passed, he always reminded people to pay attention to what supernatural creatures like ghosts and skeletons would say because it was guaranteed to be the truth.

Author's Note

The original story that this started with is "The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost" by Katharine Berry Judson. I wanted to keep the main storyline in my retelling because I enjoyed it when I first read it, but add some characteristics to the main character by giving him a name and a background story. In this retelling, he can be seen as a "hero" venturing into a famously dangerous forest to help his village which has been ravaged by war.

Bibliography: "The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost" from Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson. Source.