|| A North American Folktale||
Once in a small sleepy town of Virginia there were two men, and they were out one afternoon fishing. They caught a large basket of fish. It was growing towards evening.
One of the men says, “Where shall we go to count the fish?”
The other man says, “Oh, we’ll find a place.”
So they went on till they came to a graveyard. There was no one about.
They went in, sat on a rock between some tall bushes and started counting, “One for me, an’ one for you.”
One of them said, “The count is less. We dropped two fish on the way”. “Let’s get them on our way back”, said the other.
They kept on saying, “One for me an’ one for you, two for me an’ two for you.”
Now the graveyard was next to the church, hidden by a row of bushes. One of the priest’s friends came along for a visit and passed by the graveyard.
He stopped and listened, “One for me an’ one for you, two for me an’ two for you.”
Whose voices were these and what were they doing in the graveyard at this unearthly hour! He moved around the bushes for a better look. He still couldn’t see the fisherman but only hear their rough, high voices.
He concluded that the Devil and the Lord was in the graveyard dividin’ up people.
So he went to the priest’s quarters in great alarm. “Reverend John, your preachin’s true, but the Devil and the Lord’s in the graveyard dividing up people’s souls!”
Reverend says, “How do you know? I don’t believe you.”
“Well, get your hat and come and see.”
When they had got to the graveyard, it was properly dark. They strained their eyes in the moonlight, but it was just trees and shadows and eerie silence.
Suddenly out of the silence they heard the two fishermen say, ” That’s it, we are done. Now let us go after those two!” Of course, the fishermen meant the fishes they dropped.
But the Reverend and friend were startled by the sudden rough voice in the darkness of the graveyard. That was it enough for them.
They ran for their dear lives, without so much as a glance backward!
The next day, the story spread like wildfire, that the graveyard is to be avoided after evening, lest the Lord or worse, the Devil would capture your soul.
People started avoiding the graveyard.
The word reached the two men, who caused it in the first place. One of them said, ” Good Lord! I cannot believe our luck. We narrowly escaped death the other day!”
The other one agreed, ” True, we shall never go there after sunset anymore!”
And they never went again.
And that story of the soul-less graveyard was told and retold, until some people swear they saw the devil with devouring the souls that were his.
Others swear they saw lights and heard voices at night.
Some others said that the Lord blessed their soul and brought back some of the dead to life.
Some even claim they narrowly escaped being chased by the devil who had red eyes and a green tongue!
But one thing everyone agreed on was to avoid the graveyard after dark!
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