Santhal Folklore – The Billy Goat
The tiger and the bear started moving back to the den. While both of them were approaching back the hill, there was a fox on the way and inquisitively asked them, “Where are you two up to?”
They replied, “Won’t you be able to believe, there is a demon, plundered our home!”
“How does that look like?” asked the fox innocently.
Tiger replied, “It’s large, very large! Obnoxiously enlarged version of a beast!”
The fox replies to them, “Can we go together to see that? I guess three of us would be able to drive that out of this jungle together. But there is a point!”
“And what is that?”
“Let us tie ourselves with each other! So that none of us can fail, we will win together as we will be inseparable that way. If we win, we’ll win all three together, else we’ll die together, if we lose. Let’s get tied together.”
They got tied themselves together as per the fox’s advice, and approached the den towards the hill. The Billy goat got to know that these three has come near and started growling. That sound started echoing from the surrounding forest.
Frightened by the growling sound of the goat the trio started running away again. As three of them were tied together while running all of them tripped on one another. The bear fell down first and followed by the fox immediately. The tiger kept running but the other two started getting scratched by the drag. They started praying for the tiger to stop.
Now the tiger out of sheer disgrace, jumps on them and kills both of them. Both the bear and the fox gets killed by the tiger. And that billy goat? Nope, nobody knows anything about it anymore. Because the story ends right there!
The picture is borrowed from the collection of the famous Bengali artist & painter Jamini Roy, who spent a lifetime with the Santhali communities, painted their lifestyles, cultures & their people in unique ways. Nandalal Bhattacharya is a Bengali author & published several books on folklores & other short stories.
I have this story read out on a YouTube video. While you are there, please Subscribe to my Channel & let me know your thoughts. This is my second short story from West Bengal after I received a lot of encouragement from my first one – Bolai, a Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore.
