Deep down in the jungle of the north, there is a village in which a community of a couple hundred people live. In this village there is a man who is called The Tiger King, but his real name is Keonl. Keon has lived at this village for over fifty years and the village honors him as if he was their king. One day a younger member of the community within the village went up to the man and asked, "Hello, Tiger King, I hope you don't mind but I was wondering if you could tell me your story? I have always been curious on why the village honors you so much and how you got the name The Tiger King?" The man then said, "Sit down because this story may take awhile."
It was fifty years ago and I was just over the age of eighteen. During this time I was getting some weird dreams every night that kept telling me to go to the jungle. These dreams became more vivid as time went on and eventually I could not withstand them and decided to leave the village to go out into the jungle. Now leaving the village may seem scary with wild beasts such as tigers, boars, and panthers roaming the jungle especially at night, but I felt no fear at all. It was almost as if something was calling me in. So I left the village and made my journey to where my dreams kept having me go.
Step after step I continued through the jungle not knowing where I was going. Time flew by hour by hour and before I knew it the dark was approaching. Most people would be afraid of being in the jungle alone in the dark but I still had no fear. As the darkness approached I decided to find some shelter where I could sleep through the night. After looking for awhile, I did not find any sort of shelter to stay at and ended up lying beside a tree to sleep for the night. I shortly fell asleep after lying down from the exhausting hike I had for the day.
In about the middle of the night when the stars were at their brightest, I had woken up from some strange noises that seemed to be near by. The noises sounded like they were being made from something big in size. The noise started to come closer and closer but strangely enough I still was not scared. It had felt like this was my calling and I was destined to meet whatever was heading this way. The noise then got even closer and I could see a figure that was outlined by the light from the moon. The figure got even closer and I could see two glowing eyes that were looking right at me. As the figure got closer I could make out that it was a tiger. The tiger approached me and sat down inches in front of me. After sitting down, the tiger's eyes and mine met and neither of us moved a muscle. As this tiger was staring right into my eyes, I felt comfort, as if the tiger was here to find and protect me. I reached out to the tiger and put my palm on his forehead and at this moment I felt a connection with the tiger. The tiger then lay down next to me and slept by my side until the morning.
As the sun rose, the tiger was still by my side. After the whole experience during the night, I felt as if what was drawing me into the jungle finally found me. I then decided it was time to get back to the village and be back with my people. I got up and started to walk towards the village with the tiger following right by my side. As I got back to the village everyone was in awe because of the tiger being next to me. From this day on everyone honored me as if I was their king because they saw me as a strong and powerful being with a tiger following me around. As you might assume, this caused the village to start calling me "The Tiger King." Since that day people will bow when I walk by and even offer me gifts. The tiger stayed with me for about a year until one night I woke up and he was gone. To this day I still have yet to see him again, but I can still feel his presence out there somewhere.
So that is my story on why I am honored here in this village and where my name , The Tiger King, came from.
Author's note
For this story, I based it off of "A Child of the Woods" by Katherine Neville Fleeson. In the original story a woman leaves her village because she filled with anger and hatred for her village and decides to leave. While out in the jungle she roams around a bit and ends up falling asleep under a tree. In the night the woman wakes up with a tiger smelling her but she doesn't care and she slept the rest of the night with a tiger sitting next to her. She ends up leaving the tiger and stumbles upon a village that feared a man-eating tiger in the jungle. The woman then told the story of a tiger protecting her at night and the village starts to praise her and shower her with gifts. The woman stayed at this village for a year until she eventually wanted to return to her old village. The current village then escorted her back to her old village and now that is where she still stays.
For this story I decided to keep the same basic concept of the original story but I changed the person being praised from a woman to a man. Both my story and the original have someone leaving their village and having no fear about what is out in the open. Both stories share the similar concept of the person meeting a tiger at night that stays the night next to him, but have different approaches on what happens during the tiger encounter and what happens after the night. Another difference between my story and the original is that I added a lot more detail to the story and also took out a few things. I decided to make the man have dreams that caused him to leave the village and go out into the jungle instead of a woman having anger towards her village causing her to leave. Also I did not have the person stumble upon another village while out. Some more details I added was a bit of explanation on why people praised the man because of the tiger, and also that the tiger had a connection with the man in which the tiger went back to the village with the man and stayed with him for a year afterwards. Also I had some smaller details such as ages and dialogue between the man and person asking the man the question.
Bibliography: Laos folk-lore - " A Child of the Woods" by Katherine Neville Fleeson
Picture: Tiger
Picture Source: Maxpixel