The Story of the Yeshu Jinn

I will tell you this story as my father told it to me, and his mother to him, and you must tell your children. That is the way these things are done, like a breath blown from one generation to the next. Many, many years as the last of magical creatures roamed the Earth, it was, as they all knew, the dawn of a new age, the age of man, there was a Jinn, named Yeshu.

As far as Jinns go, Yeshu was a good jinn, but even as a good jinn he would amuse himself playing tricks on humans as they traveled on the paths warn into the desert. One day Yeshu came upon a small caravan that was traveling East. Thinking them merchants fat with spices and goods to be tricked out of, he asked if he could ride in their caravan, there being safety in numbers and all. 

Riding along, he learned that that were Magi, bearing gifts for a child king.  As with most magical creatures, Yeshu loved children and was immediately intrigued by the idea of a child king. He asked them what it was that they were bringing as gifts to this child king. “Frankincense, gold and myhrr.” They told him.

Fitting gifts for a king he thought, very fitting indeed. But what was a child to do with such things? They were not exactly fun. It seems that one should pay homage to this king as you are doing.

So Yeshu decided to give the child a gift that a child would love.  He wound twine into a ball and then sewed camel skin around it. It was a nice ball, any child would love to have it. The caravan finally reached its destination, and with great aplomb, the magi presented their gifts to the child king. After they Magi had presented their gifts, they spent some time with the parents of the child, leaving the jinn alone with him.

“Ahh, it seems that you have been given some gifts that are indeed fit for a king, but I have something else for you.” He said pulling the ball out of his robes.

“Look!” he said, rolling the ball across the floor to the little boy.

The boy watched the rolling ball, smiling as it crossed the ground and under his bed. Yeshu reached under the bed and handed the ball to the child. “So that you will never forget the joy of being a child, I think I shall give you a new toy each year. What do you think of that?” He asked as he placed the ball in the outstretched hands of the little boy.

The next year, the magi did not return, but Yeshu did. He’d made a little man out of straw for the boy king, who did not appear to live like a king at all. The following year, it was a contraption of a ball, a string, a stick and a cup. The following year, it was a little wooden cart. Even when the boy moved from one town to another, Yeshu was able to find him and give him a toy. And when he was no longer a boy, but a man, Yeshu continued to give him toys, so that he would not forget what being a child was like.

One year, after so very many years of gifts, the man who was now a king, told Yeshu that next year, the king would not be around, that he would be going away for a very long time . Yeshu knew what he was talking about, as Yeshu had always known what had been prophesied and that this time was coming. Yeshu smiled weakly, “Yes I know.” 

“Do not fear my friend, I will come back some day, and when I do I fully expect you to be here to greet me with some new toy.”

“I would consider it my own blessing to do so for you. But until you come back what am I to do?” Yeshu asked.

The king smiled, “Yeshu, I trust you will know just what to do.”

When the prophecy had come to pass, Yeshu took refuge in the shifting desert sands, avoiding contact with people. On the third year, after the king had gone, Yeshu dreamed of the king he’d come to miss so very much. It was not the king as he had last seen him, but as a child, playing with the ball that Yeshu had made for him the very first time he’s seen him so many years ago.

In his dream, he rolled the ball to the child-king as he had done then, but this time the king rolled the ball back to him, smiled and said “Again.”

Yeshu bent down to pick up the ball, and when he looked to the king to roll it back to him the king was gone. He looked around the room, but the king was nowhere to be found. Across the room there was a door, so Yeshu went to the door and opened it into a yard filled with many, many children. In the middle of the children stood the king as Yeshu had last seen him. The children looked at the king, and then to Yeshu. The king smiled, “Again.” he said.

Yeshu smiled and bent down to roll the ball to the king again, but as that ball left his hand he woke up, still smiling. ‘There are still children’ he thought, ‘and they like toys. It is wonderful.’

Yeshu rose from his bed and walked out of his home into the desert, he looked into to sky, ‘Soon his birthday will come, that will be a wonderful time to give toys to the children. I like children!’ 

He walked along the desert gathering things he would need to make toys. He gathered string and straw, he found sticks and skins he found charcoal from cooking pits and sticky sap from trees, then he returned to his home in the shifting sands and began making toys. On the day that he would normally have gone to find the king, he walked along the southern edge of the desert and gave toys to children. It made him very happy.

When he ran out of toys, he returned to his home in the desert to make more toys. In the coming years, he realized that he could not make nearly as many toys as he would have liked to, so he gathered other Jinn to help him and they were happy to because they loved children as well. All year, the Jinn would make toys, then on the king’s birthday, they would concentrate their magic through a ritual of song and dance, mount a caravan of enchanted camels and give the toys away over night. For over a thousand of years, this was enough to keep the Jinn busy and happy.

(next, Yeshu comes to the new world)

One year, Yeshu and a few of the Jinn closest to him embarked on their caravan to pass out the toys they’d made. They traveled along south of the desert, as they always did, starting in with the laying of a gift at the king’s tomb and then to the Nile River. From the Nile they would go to the Red Sea. Along the Red sea they traveled south to the Horn of Africa, then they would head west across the land to the other ocean. Enchanted camels travel faster than the eye blinks so by the morning they would be at the ocean. They arrived at a village two villages from their final destination, Ngor. But as the came to this village, they came upon sadness as they had never seen. 

All of the villagers were in the middle of the village crying. Yeshu and the other Jinn halted the caravan near the village and walked to where the people were crying. “What is the matter?” he asked.

“Our children have been taken” they cried. 

“Your children have been taken? Where? Who? Who would take your children?” he asked.

After much more crying, by both the villagers and the Jinn who listened to them, the village elders told the Jinn what they knew and what they’d imagined happened to their children. They knew that strangers had come and taken their children to the ocean. They imagined they would feed them to a monster on the other side of the ocean. The thought of such things broke the hearts of the Jinn. They slowly walked back to their caravan, still holing the toys they would give the children of this village.

They were so saddened by this news that they did not know they were followed. As they gathered themselves to finish what was left of their journey, a woman came upon them, “I know who you are.” She said.

She reached into her robe and pulled out a ball and a doll made of straw. “Last year, about this time my children woke to find these at the foot of their beds. I know I did not put them them, and I know that it was not there father, nor their aunt not uncle, nor grandmama or grandpapa. I had heard that Jinn would do these thing and I was grateful that my children would be so blessed by the Jinn.” she said as tears wound their way down her cheek.

Yeshu looked at the ball and the doll of straw in her hand. He knew that they had been made by the Jinn. “If you know who we are, then you know we cannot bring back your children, nor can we take you to them. Our caravan cannot carry people.”

“I know.” she said, “I know.”

She held her head down holding her filled hands outstretched, “I know you cannot bring them to me, nor can you take me to them. But can you take them these toys? I remember when I was a child and I woke to find a straw woman, much like this at the foot of my bed.  I was so happy. Even today, she sits on a shelf in my home to bring me a smile. Can you take these to them, so that they will know….” she stopped talking not knowing what to say.

Yeshu took the ball and the straw doll from her hands. “We will take them to your children.”

“Promise me. I know that the Jinn can not break a promise, please promise me.”

Yeshu sighed, “I promise I will give these to your children.”

“Thank you Jinn. I know you will keep your word.” she said as she turned around and walked back to her village.

“I will,” Yeshu whispered.

With heavy hearts, the Jinn finished giving away the rest of the toys they had and returned to their castle hidden in the desert dunes. 

The next year, the Jinn did as they had a thousand years before, but they all knew of the special toys and the promise Yeshu had made to the mother of those children. Yeshu kept the ball and the straw doll close to him so that they would remain in his mind as well as the promise in his heart. 

When the time arrived they did what they always did until they came to the village of the missing children. As the gifting Jinn arrived, all the other Jinn did as well. In the very clearing they had talked to the mother in the year before, they sang and they danced, concentrating their magic again. They also put magic in the ball and the straw doll to find their owners. Then Yeshu rode an enchanted camel across the ocean. 

In the morning he returned. He told the Jinn what he found. The children were in place that called Charleston, South Carolina. “Next year,” he declared “We make more toys.”