The Tiger's Foster Child
: Part I.: Folklore Of The Santal Parganas
Once upon a time a Potter woman went to dig earth for making pots,
and while she was working she was prematurely delivered of a boy. And
she considered whether she should carry the child home, or the basket
of clay, but in the end decided to take the clay which was urgently
wanted, while she would doubtless have plenty more children in the
course of time. So she went away, leaving the baby in the pit. At
evening a tige
on it and carried it away and he and his wife reared it.
As the child grew up they used to take him to the tigers' assembly. He
was not at all afraid of the tigers and understood all they said
and one day he heard them saying that the Pargana (tribal chief)
tiger was a great man-eater. At this he was very angry and set off to
look for the man-eater, without telling his foster parents. When the
Pargana tiger saw the boy coming he had just finished cleaning his
teeth, and he thought "This is lucky, here is my breakfast coming;"
but just as he was about to spring on the boy, the boy caught hold
of him and tore him to pieces.
The news of this exploit soon spread, and the tigers called a meeting
to consider the matter, and they told the foster father that he must
take steps to prevent the boy doing any such thing again. So the
tiger and tigress went home and told the boy that it was time that
he went back to his own people, as he had brought shame upon them;
the boy objected that men would not receive him, but they told him to
go as an orphan boy and beg in the villages till he found his mother.
So he went away and when he came to a village he sang:--
"My mother went to dig earth
And left me in the pit;
The tiger and the tigress of the jungle
Reared me--give me alms,"
And thus he went begging from village to village and one day he came
to the village where his father and mother lived. His mother heard
him a long way off and running to him knew him for her son. Then she
brought water and oil and turmeric and bathed him and anointed him,
and gave him new clothes and fed him on curds and parched rice. And
the villagers collected, and when they heard the stories of the mother
and son, they believed them and gave a feast in honour of the boy,
and took him into the village.
More
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