An aging king wanted to have a son, because in those days a king's fortune grew if he had children. His wife, however, suffered from troubles that kept her from conceiving.
So the king set his eyes on a servant girl, and she became pregnant with his child. At first he was filled with joy, convinced that his wealth would increase. But the child was not the queen's, and the wealth did not increase. When he understood this, the king despised the little one and rejected him.
When 45 days had passed, the child's mother fell ill. A servant who knew the king's affairs took charge of the boy and brought him to the palace, where other servants mended his clothes and gave him food.
Five years later the king died and, a little later, so did his wife. The one who came to the throne was worse: he issued a law that kept any boy from living in the castle. Eshu was there, and he decided to leave with the young man for the edge of the city, to the area of the poor. There the young man grew up and worked as a slave.
With the years Eshu grew very old. The young man noticed it and worked without rest at any hour. At work he met a woman who was also a slave; she felt sorry for the young man's situation and sent him to Orunmila. Orunmila prescribed an ebbó with a fish and announced that at dawn his name would be Oshé Lezo. He was to keep it secret until he saw a fire that went beyond him.
With time the young man became full of pride. Eshu noticed that some days he did not even greet his father, and went to consult Orunmila about it. The answer was that the young man had already been there, but that, all the same, Eshu should take omiero of Obatalá and pour it at the entrance of the town. Eshu obeyed.
Three days later a war broke out in the rich quarter, so great that houses and castles burned and nothing could stop the flames. The fire came closer without pause to the neighborhood of the poor, while the people moved farther and farther away.
Seeing this, Oshé Lezo remembered Orunmila's warning and ran toward the flames, which were already reaching the entrance of the town, right where Eshu had poured the omiero. There he stopped and shouted, as if he had lost his mind: “I am Oshé Lezo!” Each step he took made the fire retreat. When the flames died out in the town, he was left stunned, as if beside himself.
Olofin sent for him and said: “From today you will be the powerful fire of this town, with the good and with the bad, with the rich and with the poor. You will command as long as you do not become proud. Refuse nothing to anyone, and do not lose your judgment.”
A person who is rejected and grows up apart may receive a hidden name that saves him and the strength to stop what seemed impossible. That power lasts as long as the person stays humble.
A fish.
Omiero of Obatalá, poured at the entrance of the town.
To Iban Eshu