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Overview
A pair called king vultures finds abandoned twin boys and initially intends to eat them. Their cries instead move the birds to carry them to a nest and rear them. When the boys can walk, the vultures set them on the ground and eventually instruct them to beg, forbidding the route toward their birth parents’ village. The account gives them speech and a parental role but does not describe giant size or unusual anatomy.
The boys nevertheless return to their parents. The vultures break into the house to reclaim them, and a struggle between birds and parents tears the children apart. At the nest the birds first try to burn their share rather than eat the children they raised, then taste the flesh and consume it. The closing sentence explains vultures’ feeding on human remains through this tragic narrative; it is an etiological tale, not a scientific account of the origin of scavenging or an identification of a zoological species from the English phrase king vultures.
Origins & earliest records
Santal Parganas, eastern India; source-specific Santali storytelling
Records & interpretation
Complete relevant tale and preface directly read; exact locator identified.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Folklore of the Santal Parganas
XCVI, The Children and the Vultures, pp. 289–292
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
Cecil Henry Bompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909)
Historical Santal narrative collection. XCVI, The Children and the Vultures, pp. 289–292
Relevant tales completely read along with full preface. Bodding/Murmu/Bompas mediation explicitly retained; original Santali manuscripts not independently inspected. Narrative supernatural claims distinguished from independently verified history or medicine.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical translation of collected narrativesBompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (1909), XCVI, The Children and the Vultures, pp. 289–292Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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