This story is taken from Thai Children's Favorite Stories - Fables, Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales by Marian D. Toth

---

Today the tigers in Thailand wear golden fur coats marked with bold black stripes, but the tiger’s coat was not always like this. Long ago, the tiger wore a plain golden coat, like a royal robe. As he stalked along the jungle path, the gibbons, the monkeys, the parakeets and the parrots all admired their handsome king. Without a doubt, the tiger was pleased with the style of his coat. As long as he could remember, everyone had always praised him for it. If only he had not met the old man of the jungle, I do believe the tiger would still be wearing a coat of golden fur today.

It all happened one day toward the end of the monsoon season, when the rain fell so hard and so fast that it turned jungle paths into rivers. No one could remember a season that had been as wet as this.

At the time of these great rains, an old man lived near the edge of the dark jungle in a simple bamboo hut placed on posts that were firmly settled in the ground. When the monsoon rains flooded the earth, he was high and dry. At night, when the jungle animals prowled and growled, the old man pulled up his rope ladder and slept soundly. Nothing bothered to come into his house except the little chingchok lizards, of course, and since they ate the mosquitoes, he welcomed them.

All around his hut was a bamboo fence. Within it there had been a vegetable patch, a mango tree, a betel palm, a clump of banana trees and a pond. But now all you could see was a great pool of water and the tops of the trees. The pigs and chickens that had enjoyed the shade under the hut now lived in the house with their master. Each day the old man of the jungle had asked the guardian spirit of his little place to do something about the rain so that things could return to normal.

The guardian spirit must have heard him because one day the rain stopped. The old man was very happy. He climbed down his rope ladder and began to work in his muddy yard. At lunchtime he paused to rest under his coconut tree.

“Ah, there’s a nice coconut up there but I could never reach it without a long, strong coconut knife. Since it is such a beautiful day, I think I’ll go into the jungle and look for rattan grass. I could trade a few bundles of rattan for a coconut knife.”

He said a prayer to the guardian spirit to ask his blessing for the day’s adventure and went on his way. A hot sun burned overhead. There were no clouds in the bright blue sky. “I guess the rains are almost over,” the old man said.

When he stepped into the jungle he felt the comfortable, refreshing coolness of shade. He smelled the sweet scent of a flowering vine that reached for the sun and cast a tangled shadow on his path. The pulse of a slight breeze seemed to rise and fall with the echoing call of a yellow jungle bird. The old man wandered deep into the center of the jungle before he paused to take a rest.

Suddenly, he felt uneasy. A black shadow had settled all around him. Before he could turn his head to see what it was, a huge golden paw knocked him over. A hot breath blew upon his neck. Then he felt sharp teeth piercing his shoulder. He screamed like a myna bird. The old man of the jungle had been caught by the golden tiger.

The old man thought fast and began to speak rapidly. “Oh, Phra Tiger, honorable tiger, put me down, put me down! Don’t eat me!” he yelled.

The tiger tossed the man over and held him under the weight of a heavy front paw.

The tiger roared, “Speak quickly, old man. I’m hungry.”

The old man replied, “Eat me if you wish, but if you do, you will be dead by morning.”

The tiger said, “Old man, you wrap your tongue around your ears. Did you take a good look at yourself this morning? Did you dip up water with a coconut shell and look at your reflection?”

The old man laughed a little. “That I did, Phra Tiger. That I did. I know if you eat me, you will be dead by morning!”

The tiger growled and shook his head. “Explain yourself!” he roared.

“Phra Tiger, honorable tiger, if you free me, I could tie you to the top of a tree with heavy ropes of rattan.”

“Now why would you want to do a silly thing like that?” said the tiger.

“Haven’t you heard? A great rain will flood our jungle this evening. All the village men are busy building rafts. I came to pick rattan so they could tie their logs together.”

The hard gleam in the tiger’s eye began to soften a little. “Phra Tiger, you might fall from the top of a tree. Perhaps I could build a raft for you and tie you to it. Then you would float safely on top of the floodwater instead of being drowned by it.”

“Hummmrum,” growled the tiger.

“Free me, Phra Tiger. If I don’t start building your raft now, it won’t be ready in time.”

“I’ll free you,” said the tiger, “but don’t try to escape or I’ll swallow you in one gulp.”

The old man did not try to get away. He quickly gathered sturdy rattan grass and twined it into a rope. He used the rope to tie some logs together to make a raft that was just big enough to hold the enormous tiger.

“Hurry, Phra Tiger,” he called. “There isn’t much time before the sky darkens and the rain clouds burst.”

The tiger lay on the raft and growled, “Tie me securely now. Don’t do a careless job.”

“Chai, chai, yes, yes, Phra Tiger,” the old man said.

As the old man tied the last knot, securely binding the tiger to the raft, he smiled and said, “You are a lucky tiger. No matter how much it rains, you will be safe.”

The tiger purred like a contented house cat. The old man placed both his hands together, bowed low before the captured tiger, and said politely, “Sawaddi, good day, Phra Tiger.”

That night the sky darkened, but it did not rain. The next day it did not rain either. The poor tiger was hungry and very sleepy. As each hour passed, he grew angrier and angrier. When two rising suns had burned the mist off two mornings, the tiger knew the old man had tricked him.

The tiger wriggled and squirmed, twisted and turned. With each movement he made, the slender rattan ropes cut more deeply into his beautiful golden coat. Finally, with a savage, desperate surge of energy he freed himself from the rattan ties that had bound him up.

Oh, he was a ragged-looking tiger. His beautiful golden coat was ripped and slashed where the rattan had held him to the raft.

The tiger never recovered from the old man’s trick. He repaired his coat but he could not hide the black slashes where his fur had been sewn back together. From that day on, the tiger of Thailand has worn a golden coat striped with the bold black scars of his unfortunate meeting with the old man of the jungle.

As for the old man, he decided to get along without the long-handled coconut knife. “After all,” he said, “there are more important things in life than coconuts.”