• Tyler Reblogged 28/1/14 •

Mowgli is probably the most famous example of a feral child brought to us from the good people at Literature. Although you’re probably more familiar with him in his Disney incarnation, he originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. There it’s explained that as a baby Mowgli was lost by his parents during a tiger attack. Which, if nothing else, casts a pretty stark light on how trivial the challenges parents face these days are.

Mowgli was soon found by a pack of wolves, who in a pretty bold move for wolves, elected not to eat the snackin’-size human in front of them and instead raised him as their own. Learning their wolf ways, Mowgli became a skilled tracker and hunter. Ignoring their wolf ways, he also befriended a variety of other animals, including a bear and a panther.

So this all looks good so far. An infant abandoned in the jungle will be raised by friendly animals, learn their ways, and sing a whole mess of up-tempo songs. This doesn’t even seem to have any lasting negative effects on the boy; he eventually returns to a human village and lives more or less happily among these non-wolves. Sure, he does wander back into the jungle more than most normal people, and he probably has a predilection for loincloths and killing things with his teeth, but those seem like pretty minor side effects.

So then. Score one for feral children.

Not that I’m keeping score for any particular reason…