There are rumors out there that say that Jeremiah Joseph can walk on water. At least that is what people say around the village on the lake.
The people around the lake are already a superstitious folk. Weird things are said to happen around the lake, especially at night, and so, much like sailors, they have their own superstitions. Unlike sailors, the people of the village by the lake refuse to go out onto the lake to fish. They believe that there are creatures in its depths or something. Odd things are said to wash ashore on the occasion, and storms can be particularly devastating.
The people in this village did fish, however, just not from boats or any kind of craft on top of the lake surface. They felt safer fishing from the shore or from streams that fed the lake.
And so it was, Jeremiah Joseph had a friend, a blacksmith in this village, who he would sometimes come to to repair tools for him. The blacksmith loved fish, especially fried in some animal fat or oil from the olives that grew farther up the hillside. Occasionally, the blacksmith would offer Jeremiah to repair his tools in exchange for fish. There was a curious rumor that Jeremiah Joseph could walk on water. It was how he got the bigger, better fish.
So, this day, Jeremiah was visiting the blacksmith to get his axe repaired, and the blacksmith was feeling like having some fish for dinner. His wife was well known for cooking fish quite well. However, they were fearful of the creatures of the deep, though, for some reason, Jeremiah seemed to be immune to their wrath. So the blacksmith asked, and Jeremiah agreed.
Jeremiah, many years ago, had gotten the idea for a boat from seeing a large bowl get dropped into a stream when he was a child. He used to play with bowls and other crafted objects that he would make and put his pet cat into. The boat was incredibly unstable and wobbly, and so, despite the village people watching him take his boat out, they weren’t willing to brave the lake and its creatures, especially in something so precarious.
The boat Jeremiah had made was really just a gigantic basket woven of reeds and waterproofed with pine tar and flax fibres. He wove the basket with the help of some of the local women in the village who were well known for making baskets. They thought he was crazy, but they said if he could bring them bigger and better fish than they normally caught on the shore, they’d be willing to help. Together, they finished the boat, with it’s mostly flat bottom, waist high walls, lined and packed with daub made from pine tar, and then lined with a heavy cloth very much like burlap to keep him from sticking to the pine tar.
Down to the shore, he dragged his boat while the less busy villagers watched. Some were nervous, others just interested in what might happen. He used a long pole with a flatted bit, in the shape of a leaf, to help steer and pole his way along. Jeremiah, slowly, carefully, poled and paddled his wobbly basket of a boat out a ways into the lake.
When he was a few hundred meters out, he was still easily seen, but at that distance, details were a little fuzzy. He ran into an obstruction. Jeremiah looked down, a bit surprised, and noticed that he was bumped up against a shelf of rock just under the surface. From the shore, one couldn’t tell, but here it was kind of obvious, now that he bumped into it. Jeremiah had brought some string and a rock with him and so he used that to keep his boat close to the shore. He just tied the string to the rock and tossed the rock onto the shelf.
He shakily got out of his boat, figuring it would be a lot easier to fish while standing in less than a cubit’s depth of water than in his wobbly basket. So he did. He stood on the rock, the boat floating behind him, not paying a bit of attention to the people on shore. He caught six large fish, at least twice the size of the ones most people caught. Turns out the deeper water has bigger fish. Who knew?
When he was done, Jeremiah carefully got back in his boat with his fish and his rod, pulling the rock on the string back into the boat. He slowly paddled his way back ot the shore.
When he arrived on shore, the people just stared at him. They couldn’t believe it! Not only had he brought back bigger fish than they’d seen (at least not those washed up on shore), but he’d gotten out and walked around to do it! They were speechless.
Jeremiah thought nothing of their silence and awe. He just figured it must be the size of the fish and the precarious nature of the basket boat.
The blacksmith had seen none of this, having been working on repairing Jeremiah’s axe. Jeremiah dropped some of the fish off with the village women who helped him weave his boat. He thanked them deeply, and they were amazed at his feats. He went back to the blacksmith and presented his catch. The blacksmith, too, was impressed.
That night, the blacksmith’s wife cooked the fish for them. The blacksmith said he would have done it himself, but his wife chided him, having spent all day, like most days, sweating over the hot coals of his forge.
And so they ate and drank and made merry for the night. The next morning, Jeremiah thanked his friend, collected his axe, and returned to his village.