Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) by Moss Roberts Page A

number of times. Then he walked around inside at his wit’s end. Tearful, he awaited his death. The sun set, and the wind brought the tiger’s howl. She scaled the wall and entered the pit with a freshly killed elk, which she tore in half for her two cubs. Next she saw the woodsman cowering on the ground. She spread her claws and flexed her front legs, but then circled him pensively as if she had had a second thought. Instead of attacking, she fed him a scrap of the meat. As he ate it, she went into her niche with her cubs to rest.
    The woodsman figured that the tiger was not hungry now but would surely devour him come morning. Instead, the tiger leaped out of the pit at the crack of dawn. At midday she returned, bringing a musk deer, which she fed to her cubs. And as before, she threw the leftovers to the famished woodsman, who devoured them. To relieve his thirst he drank his own urine. This went on for nearly a month, and gradually he became used to the tiger.
    One day when the cubs had grown husky, the tiger put them on her back and went out. Frantic, the woodsman howled to the heavens, “Save me, Your Majesty!” Within moments the tiger came back, folded her forelegs, and lowered her head before the woodsman. He climbed onto her back, and she vaulted the wall. There on the surface she set the woodsman down, took her cubs, and went on. He was left alone by a dark cliff in dense grasses, where there was no song of birds or any noise but the shrill wind blowing out of the dark wood. More frantic than ever, the woodsman called out, “Your Majesty!”

     
    The tiger turned and regarded him. Kneeling, the woodsman pleaded, “It was Your Majesty’s kindness that kept me alive. But now we shall be lost to one another, for I fear I shall not escape wild beasts. To guarantee my safety, could you favor me with your escort to a main highway? I shall be in your debt to my dying day.”
    The tiger nodded and preceded the woodsman to the main road. Then she turned around and stood staring at him. Again the woodsman expressed his thanks: “I’m a poor man of the west gate, and after I leave you, we’re not likely to meet again. But when I get home I’m going to raise a pig, and I will wait for you with the pig on a certain day at a certain time by the post station. Come and enjoy a feast. Don’t forget.”
    The tiger nodded. The woodsman wept, and the tiger wept too. When the woodsman arrived home, his astonished family questioned him, and after he had told his story they rejoiced together. At the appointed time he prepared a pig and took great pains in butchering it. The tiger, however, arrived at the appointed place before the appointed hour. Unable to find the woodsman, she actually entered the west gate, where she was seen by the residents. They summoned some hunters, who closed the main gate and wings and gathered around the tiger, their spears at the ready, arrows to the bow. They agreed to capture her alive and present her to the local authorities.
    The woodsman ran to the rescue, crying out to the crowd, “This tiger once kept me alive. I beg you all not to harm her!” But the hunters caught the tiger and took her to the government office. The woodsman went along, beating a drum and shouting. Angered, the officials questioned him, and he told them the whole story. They did not believe him.
    “Let me prove it, then,” said the woodsman, “and I’ll suffer a beating if what I say is false.”
    The woodsman put his arms around the tiger and said tearfully, “Your Majesty saved my life?” The tiger nodded. “Your Majesty entered the gate to keep our appointment?” The tiger nodded again. “I shall plead for your life; if I fail, I shall die with you.” As the woodsman spoke, the tiger’s tears fell to the ground. Of the many thousands who witnessed this, not one stood unmoved. The astounded officials hastened to free the tiger, then led her to the post station and threw her the promised pig. The tiger