A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
The tiger in this tale has learned magic and can assume different forms. He first visits places of charitable feeding as an old, hungry Brāhmin because he likes their cooking. Hoping to obtain a wife who will prepare that food in his forest home, he appears as an attractive young scholar reciting the Rāmāyaṇa. A family marries their daughter to him, and he stays with them for a month. On their journey away, her repeated requests to rest provoke his threat to reveal his original form. When she challenges him, he suddenly displays four legs, a striped skin, a long tail and a tiger’s face, while retaining human speech.
He orders her to fill six tubs with cooked dishes each day and brings vegetables and flesh. She eventually bears a son who is also a tiger. A sympathetic speaking crow carries her written appeal to her three brothers. They frighten her husband with false demonstrations of their supposed bodies: an ass supplies a terrible voice, a palmyra trunk serves as a leg, and a large tub appears to be a belly. Their own carrying of the tree and drinking of a pond belong to the tale’s exaggerated rescue episode, not to the tiger’s anatomy. While her husband is absent, the mother kills their sleeping cub, suspends its two halves over the hearth, and escapes with her brothers and some of his property.
The returning tiger first mistakes the dripping roast for cooking muffins, then discovers his dead son and deserted house. Grieving and seeking revenge, he resumes his bridegroom’s human appearance, adjusted for the years that have passed, and visits her family. Her brothers arrange a bath seat over a disused well; it collapses under him, and they fill the well with stones and rubbish. The girl subsequently erects a memorial pillar above it and tends a sacred tulasi plant there for the rest of her life. The narrative does not rescue or revive the cub, cure the father of a curse, or identify him as a human prince under enchantment.
Origins & earliest records
Southern Indian storytelling in Kingscote and Natesa Sastri’s English collection
Records & interpretation
Complete relevant English chapter, attached notes, title, preface and introduction read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India
X, The Brâhmiṇ Girl that Married a Tiger, pp.119–130; all six notes. London: W. H. Allen & Co.; complete English chapter and attached notes read.
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
Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India
Kingscote and Natesa Sastri; London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1890. X, The Brâhmiṇ Girl that Married a Tiger, pp.119–130; all six notes
Complete retained cache kingscote-sastri-10.txt; title/preface/introduction read. Source-specific identity; no direct Tamil collation or earliest oral-attestation claim. Complete crow rescue, murdered tiger cub, returned bridegroom, well death and memorial plant ending retained.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical collected narrative and editorial notesTales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India — X, The Brâhmiṇ Girl that Married a Tiger, pp.119–130; all six notesResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.