The Prophecy of the Tiger: Folktale from India

 

Months later, the brother wanted to visit them. He gathered fruits and tubers for the journey, asked for directions to the distant village from other villagers, and set out. He had to cross several forests, hills, and valleys. He was walking through a forest when it grew dark. Though he was strong and had his bow and arrows and his pickaxe, he was still afraid of tigers and wild animals. As he sat down tired under a mahul tree (a tropical fruit tree), the tree asked him to come up and rest in its branches. He climbed up, settled in the crook of a big branch, and ate his fruit while night deepened. He could see the tracks of tigers, bears, and snakes under the tree. As he watched, a tiger came and said to the tree, ‘Come, let us visit the village. A boy is about to be born there. Let us go and see by what means the boy will die.’ The tree said it couldn’t go that night; it had a guest in its house. But would the tiger please come back in the morning and tell the tree about the boy?

 

The man in the tree was startled when he heard the name of the village where they were going-it was his sister’s village. He wondered whether his sister had had a baby. He waited anxiously all night, without a wink of sleep. In the morning, the tiger and the other wild animals returned and told the tree that the newborn boy would be killed by a tiger, and on his marriage day. They also said that the boy’s father was the headman of the village.

 

Now the brother knew who the boy was, for his sister’s husband was the headman. He raced anxiously to the village and found that indeed his sister had given birth to a son in the night. He now knew what the wild animals knew and the parents did not-the time and manner of the boy’s death.

 

As he was visiting his sister for the first time, he was treated royally. When he was about to leave, he made them promise that they would not forget to consult him when it was time for the boy to get married.

Years passed. Leaves and flowers fell many times. The boy grew up to be a big handsome fellow. His parents arranged his marriage to a suitable girl and invited the brother to the wedding. He rushed posthaste to his sister’s village, but instead of joining in the feasting and merrymaking, he stayed close to the bridegroom. He had his bow and arrows and pickaxe with him, ready to strike. He kept vigil all night outside the room where his nephew slept. Early in the morning, the nephew went out into the open fields, not heeding his uncle’s warning cry. A tiger lay in wait there and pounced on him from the bushes. But the uncle, who had been waiting all these years for this moment, was at the tiger’s throat in a flash and hacked it to death.

 

At that moment, the nephew looked at the dead tiger at their feet and shouted in triumph, ‘So this is the creature that would have eaten me up!’ He kicked the tiger in the head. His kick landed in the tiger’s open mouth and his foot struck its fangs. He was wounded and began to bleed. The bleeding would not stop, no matter what they did, and he soon bled to death.