The Close Alliance

One day a farmer took his bullocks out to plough his field. He had just turned the first furrow when a tiger strolled up to him. “Peace be with you, friend!” said the tiger. “How are you this fine morning?”

“And peace to you, my lord. I am quite well, thank you,” answered the farmer. He was shaking with fear, but he thought it wisest to be polite.

“I am glad to hear it,” said the tiger cheerfully, “because Providence has sent me to eat those two bullocks of yours. I know you are a God-fearing man, so be quick and unyoke them.”

Now that it was only a matter of the bullocks being gobbled up, the farmer’s courage came back a little. “Are you sure there is no mistake, my friend?” he asked. “Providence sent me to plough this field, and nobody can plough without oxen. Hadn’t you better go and make further inquiries?”

“There is no need for delay, and I would hate to keep you waiting,” said the tiger. “Unyoke the bullocks and I shall be ready in a moment.” And he began sharpening his teeth and claws in a very meaningful way.

The farmer begged and pleaded for his oxen, and at last he promised that if the tiger spared them, he would give him instead a fine fat young milk-cow that his wife kept tied up in the yard at home. The tiger agreed, and the farmer took his oxen and went sadly home.

His wife, a brisk, hard-working woman, saw him coming back early. “What, lazybones!” she called. “Home already, and my work only just beginning!”

The farmer told her about the tiger, and how he had promised the cow to save the bullocks. At that his wife began to cry. “A fine story!” she said. “Saving your stupid old bullocks by giving away my beautiful cow! Where will the children get their milk? How am I to cook without butter?”

“That is all very well, wife,” said the farmer, “but how can we have bread without corn, or corn without bullocks to plough? It is better to go without milk and butter than without bread, so hurry up and untie the cow.”

“You great gaby!” wept his wife. “If you had an ounce of sense, you would think of some way out of this mess!”

“Think of one yourself!” shouted her husband.

“Very well,” said she. “But if I do the thinking, you must do as you are told; I can’t do both. Go back to the tiger and tell him the cow would not come with you, but that your wife is bringing it.”

The farmer was frightened and did not at all like going back empty-handed, but he could think of no better plan, so he went. He found the tiger still sharpening his teeth and claws with hunger, and when the beast heard he must wait even longer for his dinner, he prowled about, lashing his tail and curling his whiskers so fearfully that the poor farmer’s knees knocked together.

Meanwhile the wife saddled the pony, put on her husband’s best clothes, and tied his turban very high to make herself look as tall as possible. Then she climbed onto the pony and rode off to the field.

She came swaggering and blustering down the lane, and where it turned into the field she called out, bold as brass, “Now, with any luck, I may find a tiger here! I haven’t tasted tiger meat since yesterday, when I happened to eat three for breakfast.”

When the tiger heard this and saw the rider coming straight at him, he was so frightened that he turned tail and bolted into the forest. He went so fast that he nearly knocked over his own jackal—for this tiger had a jackal who expected to share the remains of his meals.

“My lord, my lord!” cried the jackal. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“Run, run!” panted the tiger. “There is a terrible horseman in those fields who thinks nothing of eating three tigers for breakfast!”

The jackal laughed up his sleeve. “My dear lord,” he said, “the sun has dazzled your eyes. That was no horseman. It was only the farmer’s wife dressed up as a man!”

“Are you quite sure?” asked the tiger, stopping.

“Quite sure, my lord,” said the jackal. “If the sun—ahem—had not dazzled your lordship’s eyes, you would have seen her long plait hanging down her back.”

“But you may be wrong,” said the cowardly tiger. “He looked like a dreadful horseman to me!”

“Who’s afraid?” said the brave jackal. “Come, don’t give up your dinner because of a woman!”

“But someone may have paid you to lead me into a trap!” said the suspicious tiger.

“Then let us go together,” said the jackal.

“No—you might take me there and then run away,” said the tiger slyly.

“In that case, let us tie our tails together, and then I can’t.” For the jackal, you see, was determined not to lose his bones.

The tiger agreed. They tied their tails together in a reef-knot and set off side by side.

Meanwhile the farmer and his wife were still in the field, laughing over the trick she had played, when what should they see but the brave pair marching back with their tails tied together.

“Run!” cried the farmer. “We are lost, we are lost!”

“Nothing of the kind, you great gaby,” said his wife coolly, “if you will only stop that noise. I can’t hear myself speak!”

She waited until the two were close enough to hear, and then she called out politely, “How kind of you, dear Mr Jackal, to bring me this nice fat tiger! I won’t be a moment eating my share, and then you can have the bones.”

At these words the tiger went wild with fright. Forgetting all about the jackal and the knot in their tails, he bolted off at full speed, dragging the jackal behind him—bumpety-bump over the stones, crash and scratch through the briars. The poor jackal howled and shrieked at him to stop, but the noise behind only frightened the coward more. Away he raced over hill and dale until he was nearly dead with tiredness—and the jackal was quite dead from bumps and bruises.

The source’s closing warning: Don’t tie your tail to a coward’s. The reading below considers the shared risk behind that harsh wording.

About this story

“The Close Alliance: A Tale of Woe” is from Flora Annie Steel’s Tales of the Punjab (1894). In the preface Steel says she gathered all but three of the book’s stories herself, on winter tours through the districts where her husband was the chief magistrate, and Major R. C. Temple wrote the notes.

Temple notes that this is a Muslim tale, in which the words for Providence were Khudâ and Allah, and that the tiger has “from time immemorial” been thought to keep a jackal who finds him game and gets the leftovers. The source ends with the jackal’s violent death. Its comic presentation does not remove the severity of that outcome.

Read the original: Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab, 1894 (Project Gutenberg #6145)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12 with adult preview; includes threats to eat livestock and a jackal dragged to death over rough ground.

A closer reading

The tiger presents his appetite as Providence, and the farmer answers with a competing purpose: he needs the bullocks to plough. Polite language disguises the threat but does not make the bargain voluntary. Offering the wife’s cow transfers the cost to another part of the household, so her objection is about food and work as well as possession.

The wife first invents a frightening identity, then uses the tiger’s existing suspicion of the jackal. Her second greeting makes the tied pair look like proof of the betrayal the tiger already fears. The trick succeeds because it supplies an explanation for something he can actually see.

The knot is meant to guarantee loyalty, but it prevents either animal responding independently when the plan fails. The jackal wants a share of the meal and dismisses the tiger’s fear; the tiger cannot stop in panic. The danger lies in binding their movements without a way to disengage, rather than in treating all frightened people as unworthy companions.

Try this with the story

Draw the two plans as speech bubbles: the wife’s first invented boast and her second false greeting. Write what the tiger already believes before each. Then explain how the tail knot changes from a promise of safety into the cause of the jackal’s death.

Talk about it

• Whose needs are overlooked when the farmer offers his wife’s cow?
• Why does the second trick match a suspicion the tiger already has?
• What does the jackal expect to gain by returning?
• How does a knot meant to create trust make the eventual danger worse?

Related stories

• The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal — another Punjabi tale where a quick-thinking jackal outwits a tiger
• The Barber’s Clever Wife — a sharp-witted wife from the same Punjabi collection who rescues her foolish husband
• The Jackal and the Crocodile — another Steel animal tale where a jackal’s tricks are tested