Nepali Folk Tales – A Hunter and a Tiger

A man was out in the forest hunting birds when he came across a tiger. Excited at the sight of a muscular adult, the tiger prepared to pounce on him. The hunter noticed this in time and began pleading –

‘Please don’t kill me. Let’s be friends. I can manage better prey for you and will help you in a lot of things.’

The tiger liked the idea and said –

‘Sounds good! Go and kill my enemy – the porcupine’

The hunter agreed and asked where the porcupine was.

The tiger led the hunter to the hole where it lived. He pointed his gun at the face of the hole and waited for the porcupine. As soon as it came out, the man shot it – dead on the spot!

It impressed the tiger. But he didn’t want others to know about it as it would hurt his reputation.

‘Please don’t tell anyone about all this. I do not want others to know that you killed the porcupine,’ he requested.

The hunter agreed. He took the porcupine home and ate it for dinner.

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The next morning, the hunter’s wife went to fetch water in a local tap. She picked her teeth with a bamboo splinter as she walked. Two of her neighbors observed this and asked what she had eaten.

‘My husband brought a porcupine last night, he had killed it himself,’ she boasted.

The news spread like wildfire around the village. It was only a matter of time before it reached the tiger. Fuming with anger, he went around the jungle searching for the hunter. When he finally spotted him, he questioned the hunter’s commitment.

‘I said nothing,’ the hunter argued.

‘I don’t know. Now, I will prey on you,’ the tiger said.

This frightened the man and it showed in his body. He trembled.

The tiger noticed this and asked –

‘Why do you tremble?’

The hunter thought for a while. He realized that the only thing the tiger was afraid of was the porcupine. So, he decided to cash in on this opportunity.

‘The porcupine I ate yesterday is mad at you. It wants to come out of my body to hurt you,’ he said.

The tiger sprinted out of sight in a jiffy!

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DISCUSSION:

A person is in threat. Scared out of mind, that person requests the threatening person to pardon him by promising to help in return. He helps the threat get rid of its biggest weakness. But the threat asks for a commitment to that secret. Although the man adheres to his words, the nature of things is such that the secret is out. The threat is mad at the person for revealing it and goes to destroy him. The man realizes the threat’s weakness and uses it to chase it off!

What we can learn from this tale is –

1. Be careful with sensitive information
2. Stay true to your words – but if someone doesn’t understand your situation and comes to hurt you, use your intelligence to exploit their weakness for your safety. 

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