Episode 96 – Were Tiger? There Tiger!

Episode 96 Show Notes

Source: Manipuri Folklore

• This week on MYTH, we’re going to answer the question raised by William Blake – Tyger Tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night: what immortal hand or eye, dare frame thy fearful symmetry?  You’ll see that you shouldn’t trust a weretiger, that your neighbors probably suck, and that carrying water is hard.  Then, in Gods and Monsters, sometimes the best athlete is a frog. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory.  Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them.  This is Episode 96, “Were Tiger? There Tiger!”.  As always, this episode is not safe for work.
• Our story this week comes from the ancient Manipur Empire, also known as the Kangleipak Empire, a place mentioned in the Mahabharata (the ancient Hindu scripture we last discussed in Episode 79). The district of Manipur still exists as a state in the northeast of the modern Republic of India, though the empire that gave rise to our story stretches back to the 15th century BC. The version we’ll be using comes from Fungawari Singbul or Folktales of Manipur by B. Jayantakumar Sharma. Once, long long ago, there was a priest named Kabui Salang Maiba. This particular priest was extremely skilled in the art of witchcraft. Given that power, he went full Animorph and turned himself into a tiger. Unfortunately, either because he wasn’t quite as skilled as he thought he was or because he was punished for his excessive pride, Kabui found that he couldn’t turn himself back. At least, not all the way. He became Keibu Keioiba (kay-boo kay-oy-ba) or tiger-head. In some versions, he has the head of a tiger and the body of a man, hence the name. In other versions, such as this story, he became a kind of weretiger – man by day and tiger by night.
• Keibu lived all alone in the jungle, as much because of his terrible personality as to hide his magical secret. He wasn’t much of a cook or a housekeeper, and his place was fit for the animal he often was. Whenever night fell, he would sprout his fur and fangs and head out into the jungle in search of prey. On one of his nightly hunts, he came across an old woman who lived all alone in a small hut at the edge of the village. Keibu might be a tiger, but he was more Big Bad Wolf than American Werewolf in London and he decided to play it clever. The tiger slunk up to the door and, with one massive paw, knocked politely on the door.
• The old woman went and answered the door, curious as to who would be knocking so late at night. She wasn’t expecting a fucking tiger because who would be? Keibu smiled a wide, toothy grin and prepared to pounce, but the old woman begged him to spare her. “I’m old and wrinkly and I taste just awful. Really, I’m just skin and bones at this point, no meat at all and hardly worth the trouble. You don’t want to eat me, you want to eat my beautiful young neighbor Thabaton. She lives just down the road with her seven brothers – you can’t miss her.” The tiger sat down on his haunches and considered. “She does sound a lot more delectable than you, but I don’t much care to tangle with seven brothers. Sounds like a huge damned hassle. Sorry lady – you’re dinner.” “Wait wait wait! Didn’t I mention? Her brothers are all out of town at the moment. They had to leave town for work, leaving poor Thabaton all alone. You can eat her, no trouble.”
• Keibu the tiger sat down again to mull it over. Seeing that she might just make it out of this alive, the old woman went on. “She’s so sweet and beautiful and tender, in fact, that her brothers built her a special house. The doors all have seven hinges making it impossible to break them down but I know the trick to getting her to open them for you. If you promise not to eat me, I’ll tell you.” Keibu’s stomach growled and he agreed that he would spare the old woman if her intel on this Thabaton was true. 
• Thus did Keibu the tiger find himself at the seven-hinged door to Thabaton’s house. As he had with the old woman, he used his huge tiger paw to knock on the door. Working to make his voice as un-tigerish as he could, Keibu spoke the words the old lady had taught him: “My sister Thabaton – open the door! Your seven brothers are back from our trip.” As far as magic phrases go, it’s pretty obvious. I’m honestly not sure that the old lady actually had any special knowledge (beyond knowing that her brothers were away on business); she probably just guessed at what they would say when they came back. Thabaton was nobody’s fool and she knew that the voice outside her door was some stranger and not one of the brothers she’d known her whole life. “You don’t sound anything like my brothers, so if it’s all the same to you, I won’t be opening the door. Please go away now.”
• Keibu didn’t bother trying to knock down the door. The old lady’s advice hadn’t worked out so, by the terms of their bargain, he was free to go eat her now. I don’t know if the old woman didn’t have a lock for her door or had just been really sure about her weak advice, but Keibu was apparently able to just waltz back into her house. “Your advice didn’t work so now it’s supper time. Prepare to die!” The old woman was still not ready to die, so she promised the tiger that she could convince her neighbor to open the door herself. Together, they traveled to Thabaton’s house though Keibu was starting to get annoyed at this whole situation. If this didn’t work out, he was done giving the old lady chances and was just going to eat her. 
• This old lady was apparently very skilled at impressions because she too disguised her voice to sound like the absent brothers. “Oh dear sister Thabaton, we’re back from our journey. We made a whole bunch of money to share with you, so open up and let us in!” The old woman was apparently very convincing, and Thabaton opened the special door with seven hinges. As soon as she did so, Keibu the tiger pounced on her. The old woman didn’t wait to see how it turned out – as soon as the door opened, she ran the fuck back home and pretended that she’d never seen any tiger. 
• In time, the seven brothers did indeed return from their work trip only to find the door to their home open and their beloved sister missing. They rushed inside and searched high and low, but saw no sign of her. Spreading the net wider, they headed out into the village and talked to their neighbors. Here, they finally had some success. One of the neighbors (probably not the old woman who had thrown her to the wolves, or rather tigers) told them about the late-night assault. On the downside, the seven brothers now knew for sure that something terrible had happened to Thabaton. On the upside, they also knew that it was Keibu Keioiba who was at fault and, more importantly, that she was still alive. The weretiger had kidnapped Thabaton instead of eating her, despite this whole adventure starting with him being on the hunt for dinner. Howling their lamentations and baying for blood, the brothers drew their swords and headed out at once in search of Thabaton and her kidnapper.
• So let’s rewind back to  that fateful night. When Keibu had pounced on the unsuspecting Thabaton, he had seized her in his powerful weretiger arms and carried her off into the night. She must have been terrified that any moment could be her last, but that was not to be her fate. Instead, the slovenly bachelor wanted a slave to cook and clean for him, but this asshole also fully intended to rape her. The phrase the story uses is ‘wife’, but it’s also very clear that literally all of this is against her will and under threat of, you know, murdering and eating her. She was forced to keep his house clean and cook his meals every day, and submit to his bestial desires at night. As I mentioned earlier, Keibu lived way, way out in the remote jungle. Thabaton knew that she had no chance of escape. Fleeing into the jungle was just a slower form of suicide.
• Months passed for Thabaton, alone in the jungle with the terrible tiger monster. Her only hope, which faded with every passing day, was that her brothers would come looking for her. As it so happened, her brothers were in fact continuing to look for her. That tiger asshole hadn’t eaten her on the spot and, although real tigers do have a nasty tendency to drag their kills into a dark, private place to devour, they don’t tend to take their victims alive. They held out hope that Thabaton still lived and continued to search for her. They followed every rumor they could find of tiger monsters and, one day, they spied a young woman in a clearing deep in the woods. Even at that distance, the brothers were sure that it was Thabaton.
• She didn’t seem to notice them, absorbed as she was in her daily tasks and endless hopelessness about her situation. They crept up carefully to the hut and peeked in the window. Sure enough, it was Thabaton but she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t Keibu however, but a child. Yeah, Thabaton has had a truly terrible few months (I’m not sure if it’s been over a year by now or if magic weretiger babies just have a shorter gestation period, but I’m guessing the latter). They weren’t sure if she was alone or if the tiger dick was just somewhere out of sight, so they signaled carefully to her. They let her know that they were there and quietly promised to come back.
• They camped in the jungle overnight, watching the hut. The next morning, they watched as Keibu headed out and, after making sure he was really gone, they knocked on the door. She rushed out to greet her brothers in a flurry of tears and hugs. Everyone was overjoyed to see the others. It was a very powerful moment. Once everyone had gotten their fair share of hugs, they began to plan Thabaton’s escape. They couldn’t just run off with her or Keibu would track them down. He was, after all, a deadly weretiger with unspecified magic powers so they couldn’t risk him hunting them. They needed a scheme.
• As the sun began to move towards the horizon and evening approached, Keibu Keioiba returned home from whatever unspecified evil errands he’d been on. When he walked into the hut, Thabaton was scurrying around busily, preparing dinner. When she saw her captor come in, she handed him a pipe used for carrying water. She told him that they were all out of water and she needed more to finish the meal. She couldn’t leave to get it herself or the food would burn, so she needed him to go fetch some and quickly. Grumbling that he had kidnapped her to do this kind of menial shit, the tiger monster headed out to the river. 
• The seven brothers were waiting. After talking with their sister, they had found a good hiding place where he wouldn’t notice them or their scent. His loud complaining didn’t help his concentration and so the asshole didn’t notice a thing. They waited until he was out of sight and then headed into the hut. Hugging Thabaton again, they gathered up the very few things she wanted to have and then set fire to the hut. For good measure, they killed Keibu’s son before they left, which is rough but honestly, there’s no good solution to that terrible situation.
• By this point, Keibu had reached the river with the pipe. He stooped down to fill it up, but all of the water immediately ran out of it. He tried again with the same result. Unbeknownst to him, Thabaton had secretly drilled a second hole in the pipe on the other end. It now was unable to hold water, confusing the shit out of Keibu. He might be a powerful sorcerer, but he’d been a tiger a long, long time and had lost some of his problem-solving skills. Overhead, a crow watched all of this transpire, and it was a lot more clever than the tiger. Plus, he had a better vantage point and could see everything that was happening back at the hut. Like how it was currently on fire. The crow cawed loudly. “Keibu Keioiba naning namang hotrong ho, natu leima kangkok!” which roughly translates to “Keibu Keioiba, hollow at both ends and your wife is flown.” That’s both an accurate description of the situation and a backhanded swipe at Keibu for being ‘hollow at both ends’ or totally oblivious.
• The crow repeated this ominous phrase over and over, which eventually convinced him that something was up. He dropped the busted pipe and rushed home. Long before he got there, Keibu saw the plume of smoke rising out of the jungle. He arrived at what had once been his home to find it a pile of ash and cinder with the remains of a small charred skeleton still visible in the rubble. What he didn’t see was Thabaton (or her corpse). He immediately realized that she had finally made a break for freedom. Cursing her name, he set out on her trail.
• Naturally, Thabaton and her brothers had totally expected that dickwad to follow after them after destroying everything he cared about. Who wouldn’t? They raced for home where they would have the home-turf advantage. Fighting a weretiger is always going to be a tough proposition, but it’s definitely going to be a lot worse if you fight him in his own jungle territory. Keibu came storming in through the gate after Thabaton, but in his rage he kind of forgot that there were also seven brothers to contend with. They fell on the weretiger as soon as he crossed the threshold. The fight was short, brutal, and merciless but, when the dust had settled, Keibu was dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Thus was Thabaton freed from her tormentor, and she lived a free and happy life for the rest of her days with her beloved brothers always at hand if she needed them. That’s about as happy an ending as you can hope for with a story about an evil weretiger, which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story.  This week’s clever critter is the frog.
• This Manipuri fable comes from the same collection as our main story and also features a tiger. Once upon a time in a forest (maybe the same forest, maybe a different one), there lived a powerful elephant and a fearless tiger. These two beasties are true animals, not polymorphed sorcerers. It was a fairly spacious jungle as such things went, so the elephant and the tiger managed to live their lives for many years without ever encountering one another. All good things must come to an end however, and one day these two lords of the jungle headed to the same patch of forest in search of food. As you might guess, they did not become friends.
• In fact, it was hate at first sight. The tiger roared so powerfully that it seemed the very mountains would crack and the elephant trumpeted so loudly that the very forest seemed to quake. Every smaller animal (which was pretty much all of them in the vicinity) got the fuck out of there. Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor and this was definitely one of those times. If Godzilla movies have taught me anything, it’s that you don’t want to be around when two titans clash.
• The battle was epic, real kaiju shit, but when the dust had settled, the tiger had come out on top. The tiger thought that the elephant would make a fine meal – later. He’d just recently had a pretty large lunch and wasn’t super hungry, but you didn’t get a chance to eat elephant every day. Thus, he resolved to trap the elephant alive for the time being. When he finally got hungry again, the tiger could kill the elephant then and eat him fresh. The story doesn’t explain just how the tiger managed to keep the elephant captive, so pick your favorite method. 
• However it worked, the elephant was trapped and unable to escape on his own. Looking around desperately, the only creature he could find was a frog hanging out in a nearby tree (since pretty much everyone else had skedaddled when the fight started). “Hey frog, get your ass over here and set me free!” The frog was irritated by the elephant’s extremely loud voice and rude manner. Seeing that the frog was getting mad instead of, you know, saving his life, the elephant got mad himself. Irritated, the frog decided to challenge the elephant. “Alright asshole, how about this – you and I race. Whichever one of us wins will be named the greater.
• The elephant didn’t need to waste much time considering this offer. “You’re on. If you bust me out of the tiger’s jail, I’ll run any race you want.” The story is also frustratingly silent on how exactly the frog managed to free the elephant from his captivity, but free the elephant he did. They went far enough away to avoid being immediately recaptured by the tiger, picked out their course, and then lined up to race. The elephant figured he had this in the bag. He might be slow off the start, but he could really book it once he got up a good head of steam. The earth shuddered under his massive steps and, sure enough, the frog was nowhere to be seen.
• The elephant was already celebrating his victory in his mind as he approached the finish line when something suddenly blurred ahead of him. To the elephant’s surprise, the frog flew across the finish line just ahead of him. It turns out that the frog had climbed up on the elephant at the start of the race, ridden him the whole way, and then leapt to victory at the last possible moment. Fortunately, being freed from death by tiger put the elephant in a good mood and he laughed at the frog’s cleverness and the two became instant friends.
• Meanwhile, back in the other part of the jungle, the tiger had come back from wherever he fucked off to (taking a nap if I know cats). He was furious to see that the elephant had somehow escaped from…whatever he was using to hold the beast. He wasn’t a mighty hunter for nothing, so he immediately tracked the elephant’s trail. Given his massive size, it probably wasn’t all that hard of a trail to follow. He didn’t find the elephant though, he found the frog. The tiger’s temper was even more fragile than the elephant’s, and so it took no time at all for him and the frog to get into it. 
• Just like he had with the elephant, the frog challenged the tiger to a race. The tiger was much quicker off the starting block than the elephant was, but the frog was still fast enough to hop on his back and pull the same trick. Once again, he leapt across the finish line ahead of the tiger, winning the race. The tiger didn’t have the same good humor as the elephant (he was kind of a dick, much like the weretiger of our main tale) and he was absolutely humiliated at being defeated by a measly frog. He slunk away into the forest, tail between his legs. In this way, the clever frog saved the elephant from certain death and made a new friend, proving that it’s better to work smarter, not harder.
• That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated.  Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod.  You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line.  I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated.  The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff. 
• Next time, we’re headed to the ancient land of Judea for a real bad hair day. You’ll see that it pays to keep your promises, that corpse honey is the best honey, and that there’s more than one way to unlock a gate. Then, in Gods and Monsters, donkeys can sing and camels can dance, but they probably shouldn’t. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.