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First published serially between 1893 and 1894, "The Jungle Book" is Rudyard Kipling's classic collection of jungle tales in which we first meet Mowgli, a child lost in the jungles of India and raised by a pack of wolves. To survive in the jungle Mowgli most learn from the animals to abide by the laws of the jungle. A cast of interesting creatures surround Mowgli, including Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther, who help the young man to survive, and the tiger Shere Khan, who is envious of Mowgli and wishes his demise. Also contained in "The Jungle Book" are the stories of Kotick, a white seal in search of a new home for his tribe were they will not be hunted, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a mongoose who defends an Indian family against a pair of cobras, along with several other tales of the jungle. One of the most popular collections of short stories for children ever written, "The Jungle Book" was inspired by Kipling's own experiences as a youth in India, where he would spend many of his formative years. Because of the popularity of "The Jungle Book" Kipling wrote a sequel, "The Second Jungle Book", in which five more tales of Mowgli and three other jungle tales are related. Interspersed with beautiful poetry relating to the stories, Kipling's "Jungle Books" are collected together here in this volume. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.
| ISBN-13: | 9781420962192 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Digireads.com |
| Publication date: | 06/14/2019 |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d) |
| Age Range: | 8 - 12 Years |
Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free --
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call! -- Good hunting all
That keep the jungle Law!
Night Song in the Jungle
It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee Hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf, "it is time to hunt again." And he was going to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, 0 Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and strong white teeth go with the noble children, that they may never forget the hungry in this world. "
It was the jackal -- Tabaqui the Dish-licker -- and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia,but they call it dewanee -- the madness -- and run.
"Enter, then, and look," said Father Wolf, stiffly, "but there is no food here."
"For a wolf, no," said Tabaqui, "but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the Jackal-People], to pick and choose?" He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily.
"All thanks for this good meal," he said, licking his lips. "How beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning."
Now, Tabaqui knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces; and it pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.
Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully:
"Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me."
Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Wainganga River, twenty miles away.
"He has no right!" Father Wolf began angrily. "By the Law of the jungle he has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He will frighten every head of game within ten miles, and I -- I have to kill for two, these days."
"His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] for nothing," said Mother Wolf, quietly. "He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Wainganga are angry with him, and he has come here to make our villagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very grateful to Shere Khan!"
"Shall I tell him of your gratitude?" said Tabaqui.
"Out!" snapped Father Wolf. "Out and hunt with thy master. Thou hast done harm enough for one night."
"I go," said Tabaqui, quietly. "Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message."
Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to a little river, he heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.
"The fool!" said Father Wolf. "To begin a night's work with that noise! Does he think that our buck are like his fat Wainganga bullocks?"
"Hsh. It is neither bullock nor buck he hunts tonight," said Mother Wolf "It is Man." The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger.
"Man!" said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. "Faugh! Are there not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat Man, and on our ground too!"
The Law of the jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too -- and it is true -- that maneaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated "Aaarh!" of the tiger's charge.
Then there was a howl -- an untigerish howl -- from Shere Khan. "He has missed," said Mother Wolf "What is it?"
The Jungle Book. Copyright © by Rudyard Kipling. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.The Jungle Books Introduction
Note on the Text
The Jungle Book
Preface
Mowgli's Brothers
Hunting Song of the Seeonee Pack
Kaa's Hunting
Road-Song of the Bandar-Log
"Tiger-Tiger!"
Mowgli's Song
The White Seal
Lukannon
"Rikki-tikki-tavi"
Darzee's Chaunt
Toomai of the Elephants
Shiv and the Grasshopper
Servants of the Queen
Parade-Song of the Camp-Animals
The Second Jungle Book
How Fear Came
The Law of the Jungle
The Miracle of Purun Bhagat
A Song of Kabir
Letting in the Jungle
Mowgli's Song against People
The Undertakers
A Ripple Song
The King's Ankus
The Song of the Little Hunter
Quiquern
Angutivun Tina
Red Dog
Chil's Song
The Spring Running
The Outsong
Notes
“Kipling knew something of the things which are underneath, and of the things which are beyond the frontier.”—T. S. Eliot
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