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.

LXXV.  The Caterpillar Boy.

Once there was an old woman who lived on the grain she could collect from other people’s threshing floors.  One day as she swept up a threshing floor she found a caterpillar among the paddy; she threw it away but it came crawling back again; she threw it away again, but it said “Do not throw me away, take me home with you and you will prosper.”  So she let it stay and that day she found that she collected a whole basketful of rice; at this she was delighted, and put the caterpillar on the top of her basket and took it home.  There she asked the caterpillar what work it would do, and it said that it would watch the paddy, when it was spread out to dry after being boiled, and prevent the fowls and pigs from eating it.

So the caterpillar used to watch the paddy while the old woman went out looking for food; and every day she brought back a full basket of rice, and so she soon became rich.  It got whispered about that the old woman was so prosperous, because she had a caterpillar boy in her house.