The folktale of the shepherd boy and the tiger is one of the folktale stories with moral lesson from South Asia. The story revolves around a shepherd boy. Though the story is simple and short, it is indeed one of the best moral stories for kids that is also suitable as bedtime stories. Enjoy storytelling!
Once upon a time, there lived a shepherd boy in a rural village. The village was situated near a vast, deep jungle. Most of the people in this village were farmers and shepherds. They worked very hard all day long and looked after their crops even at night. Everyone in the village was a hardworking person. They all lived busy lives. Because if they did not always work, they could not survive. Everyone had a lot of work to do in their job.
Even the kids in this village had tasks too. Most of them were helping their parents with their farming and herding animals. Among them was this young shepherd boy. And his only job was to look after his herd of goats.
The shepherd boy was looking after a herd of goats at a grassland near the jungle at the end of the jungle. Meanwhile, other people were working on their farmlands and looking after their cattle and goats.
The shepherd boy was bored. He was looking after the goats but he did not have anything else to do. One day, he thought of having some fun. He thought of having fun doing a prank on the others.
He climbed onto a rock on the grassland and screamed, asking for help. “Help! Help! A tiger came!” the boy shouted out loud.
Hearing the boy’s call for help, the villagers rushed to the grassland. They carried anything they could find quickly to use as a weapon to save the boy and his herd. In no time, the villagers arrived there to help the boy. But there was no tiger. Instead, they found the boy laughing at them. The villagers realized the boy had lied to them to make them come and laugh at them. Though the boy made a very inappropriate joke, the mature villagers did not scold the boy. They advised the boy not to do such a thing again. They advised him to have fun in ways that everyone can be happy.
The time passed. The boy was bored again. And he wanted to have fun in the way he had fun one time. He loved the prank he did on the villagers. So, he did it again. He screeched again, saying there was a tiger attack. Just like the first time, the caring villagers came running to help the boy, leaving behind everything they were doing. But, again, there was no tiger. The villagers advised the boy again and he went back.
Soon after, the boy screamed again, asking for help. “It’s Tiger! A Tiger! Help! Help!” the boy screamed.
But the villagers, who were pranked two times before, didn’t go to help the boy. “Ah, that ignorant kid is just playing with us,” people said to each other and stayed on with their work.
In a while, the boy stopped screaming. The villagers thought, the boy was doing a prank and he realized that they didn’t fall for his joke this time and stopped screaming.
“See, the poor boy has stopped screaming now,” one man said.
“He might realize that we can’t be fooled this time,” another man replied.
That day, in the evening, the boy came walking to the village across the fields of the crops where the villagers were working. His head was low. Though the boy did inappropriate pranks on them, the caring villagers asked what happened. The boy said what happened. Also, he apologized to everyone for his pranks. Because this time, a tiger had attacked for real. A tiger had come and dragged off one of his goats.