A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

The forest guardian is a huge ogre seated on a wolf, with a string of animals’ eyes around his forehead. Lungile and the speaking buck meet him at the first great trees of a mountain forest. He announces that the buck will feed his wolf and the young woman will feed him. The scene describes his huge mouth and long arms as he reaches for the apparently helpless animal.

Touching the buck immediately changes it into a young man. The wolf flees into the bush in terror; the restored chief strangles the ogre and leaves him dead. He removes the eye crown and throws it down, where the eyes become living bucks that follow him affectionately. The subsequent explanation identifies the chief’s subjects as people bewitched by Maginde. The crown participates in their release, but the tale does not explain how this ogre obtained or wore their eyes.

Wolf mountAnimal-eye crownHuge mouth and long armsThreatened consumptionEyes become living bucks
01

Origins & earliest records

Sarah F. Bourhill and Beatrice L. Drake collected and arranged the English tale for children. The publication does not name an individual contributor for this episode; its literary dialogue is not treated as a verbatim field transcription.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete XVIII. The Enchanted Buck, printed pp. 212–223, read through the final resolution.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Fairy Tales from South Africa

    Sarah F. Bourhill and Beatrice L. Drake, collectors and arrangers · 1908

    XVIII. The Enchanted Buck, pp. 212–223; complete English arrangement, unnamed individual contributor.

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.

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

Primary source witness

Sarah F. Bourhill (Mrs. E. J. Bourhill) and Beatrice L. Drake (Mrs. J. B. Drake), Fairy Tales from South Africa, London: Macmillan, 1908; selected original title page and complete headed tales in PG75833. Arranged for children; introduction pp.v–xi attributes principally Swazi, also Zulu and border-region contributions, with Shining Princess attributed to Mapoch. Individual narrators for these selected tales unnamed. Historical colonial framing is not current community consensus.

  1. The ogre sits on a wolf and wears a forehead string of animals’ eyes. It plans to eat Lungile and feed the buck to its mount. The crown is separate from ordinary eyes across an ogre’s body in other stories.

    XVIII, pp.220–221; threatening guardian

  2. As the buck becomes a man, the frightened wolf runs away and the chief strangles the ogre. Throwing the eye-crown to the ground produces living bucks. The wolf is not killed, and the narration does not independently identify which individual victim supplied each eye.

    XVIII, p.221; death and released animals

Selected historical arrangement, not unmediated original-language oral testimony. Individual contributor not named; no separate manuscript inspected. Original facsimile not visually inspected in this batch.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Collected historical tale in an English literary retellingBourhill and Drake — XVIII. The Enchanted BuckResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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