Reading Notes: Tibetan Folktales, Part A

After reading Part A of the Tibetan Folktales unit, I found the story I would most like to retell is that of "The Tiger and the Frog." In this story, a hungry, old tiger goes out in search of food. Reaching the river, he comes across a frog and decides that he will eat it. The frog, thinking quickly, declares himself to be the "king of the frogs" and challenges the Tiger to a couple competitions. The frog outwits the tiger at each one, scaring the Tiger out of eating him. As the Tiger runs away, he comes across a fox and explains the situation. The fox laughs that even he could easily kill the frog and goes with the Tiger back to see him. As they approach the frog, he sees them and calls out to the fox, thanking him for bringing him the Tiger to eat, causing the Tiger to run away again.

I wanted to rewrite this story, first because I felt kinda bad for the Tiger. Dude's old, he just wants to eat. And second, because in real life, frogs are too small for even a starving tiger to consider food. Frogs actually like to hang out around Tigers because anything big enough to eat a frog is just barely big enough for a Tiger to see as prey. In a rewrite of this story, perhaps the fox has been troubling the frog and the frog lets the Tiger use him as bait to catch the fox. Everyone wins (except the fox).

Story Source: Tibetan Folktales by A. L. Shelton

Tibetan Tiger. Source: WikiMedia Commons