Once upon a time, in a land far away, there once was a woodcutter who lived at the edge of the Forest on the Mountain.

He was a solitary man. He had no parents, no wife, and no children. He had no name, for there were none who remembered it. He had no voice, for there were none who had heard it.

He was, to all appearances, a simple woodcutter living a simple life in his humble hut at the edge of the woods.

Each and every morning the woodcutter would rise at the break of dawn, eat a plain breakfast of rice and tea, and head into the forest with his axe and lumber pack. When the sun had passed its zenith, he would emerge from the forest with a pack full of lumber, and hike down the Mountain to the village in the valley, where his lumber would be used as firewood for the night.

Day after day, season after season, year after year, the woodcutter went from his home, to the Forest, to the village, and laid bundles of firewood in front of each home.

Though most ignored or simply did not see the humble woodcutter, the village magistrate secretly cherished the dutiful man, for he felt he could share with him troubles and thoughts that he could with no other.

Maybe it was because the woodcutter was an outsider, and therefore uninvolved in village matters. Or maybe it was because he had never been known to speak, and could be trusted to keep any secret. Or maybe it was simply because the magistrate just liked the look of him. Regardless of the reason why, the magistrate looked forward to the woodcutter’s coming each day.

“Ah, ah,” he would sigh aloud, one day, as the woodcutter came into town. “Being a magistrate is tiring, woodcutter, so very tiring. It’s nothing but governing and planning and arguing, day after day, season after season. I am busy beyond belief! I hardly ever get a moment to enjoy by myself.”

In response, the woodcutter would bow politely, leave his lumber, and move on without a word.

“Woodcutter!” the magistrate would say, another day. “Woodcutter! How good it is to see you. What a beautiful day it is today. Listen to the birds! Look at the blue sky. Feel the sun on your skin. Taste the fresh mountain air. Truly, heaven smiles on us this day!”

Again, the woodcutter would bow, leave his lumber, and move on.

“I’m sad, woodcutter, so very sad,” the magistrate would say, still again another day. “For I have no family, and am likely to die alone. I have no wife to keep me warm at night, and no children to carry on my name. But what can I do? My face and my back are homely and small, and I have neither riches nor land to attract for myself even the lowliest of concubines. I am but a poor magistrate of a humble village.”

This, and more, the magistrate would share with the woodcutter, to which the woodcutter’s response would always be to bow, leave his lumber, and move on.

One morning, having eaten his breakfast of rice and tea, the woodcutter set off into the forest with his axe and lumber pack. But that day, just as he reached the very edge of the woods, a tiger leaped into his path.

It was as large as a war horse, with long white fangs that glistened at the sides of its mouth, and long sharp claws that extended and sank into the earth. It’s bright, yellow eyes glared at the woodcutter like twin flames, and its orange and black fur twitched and stirred like embers. It growled, and the sound rumbled in its body like distant thunder, as the beast prowled back and forth across the path.

The woodcutter jumped at the sight of it, but did not dare to move. If he ran, it would excite the tiger into a chase. If he tried to fight it with his axe, it would easily crush it in its powerful jaws, and his neck soon after.

Surely I am dead, he mourned. I am without power or persuasion over my fate. I am entirely at the mercy of the tiger, and a small mercy it is likely to be.

At this, the woodsman trembled where he stood and prayed desperately to his ancestors, begging that they would at least grant him a swift and painless death.

But the tiger did not pounce.

Instead it ceased its growling and its pacing, and stood without moving in the middle of the path. So occupied was the poor woodcutter with his trembling, and his prayers, and the thoughts of his own demise, that he did not even begin to wonder at the tiger’s intentions. Even more so as it began to slowly draw near, step by silent step.

But now faced with the coming beast and the deafening silence, the woodcutter’s fear fluttered and grew, multiplying in his heart tenfold, then tenfold again until it became as the trilling of a thousand birds, too heavy and loud for his reason to bear. With a panicked cry, he sprang away from the tiger and raced as fast as he could back down the mountain without looking back, certain that at any moment he would feel its claws and fangs tear into him from behind.

But the tiger did not follow.

When the woodcutter reached his hut, he bolted the door behind him, threw himself beneath the bed, and did not come out for an age. But once his fear had fled and he was certain of his safety, he celebrated his good fortune with a lavish dinner of wine and red rice. Then he gave profuse and prolonged thanks to all the gods and ancestors he could remember, thanking them for their favor, and burned incense in their honor all through the night.

The next morning, after his meal of rice and tea, the woodcutter set off again into the forest on a path different from the one he had taken the day before. But as he neared the forest, there again was the tiger, lying in wait at the side of the road.

But when it saw the woodcutter that morning, it did not get up or approach. Instead it rolled over onto its large back and gave a long, loud groan of anguish. It shook a limp front paw, and tossed its great head up and down as tears filled and fell from the tiger’s bright yellow eyes, each large enough to fill the woodcutter’s tea cup. It laid its head pitifully on the ground, and extended its hurt, but still formidable paw.

But the woodcutter knew only a fool or madman would approach a wounded tiger, and he knew how a beast might pretend injury to draw in thoughtless prey. So instead of passing by and on into the forest, the woodcutter retreated back to where he could take yet another path, making certain all the while that he was not being followed.

He saw neither hide nor hair of the beast for the rest of the day.

“Woodcutter!” shouted the magistrate, when he came into town. He opened his arms wide, his face a visage of joy. “My dear woodcutter! Where have you been? I was so worried for you when we didn’t see you yesterday. I was certain that you were deathly ill, or injured, or worse! How glad I am to see you alive and well.”

As always, the woodcutter bowed, left his lumber, and moved on.

The next morning, after his usual meal of rice and tea, the woodcutter set off once again into the forest by, still again, another path. Fearing another encounter with the tiger, he searched high and low as he walked, ready to run at even the slightest glimpse of it. But to his relief and delight, he saw no sign of the beast.

But as he neared the very entrance of the forest, wondering if he had seen the last of it, the tiger surged out from its place of hiding and onto the helpless woodcutter. It seized one of his legs in its great jaws, breaking it in its rush, and dragged him, screaming, off the path and into the forest.

It ran deep into the forest, pulling the woodcutter along behind it, until the trees grew thick and wild, and the patches of sunlight grew thin, and thinner still. The poor woodcutter, now too breathless and too terrified to fight or pray, watched without hope as the windows of daylight at the forest’s edge, his world’s edge, grew smaller and smaller, until they disappeared altogether.

When it finally released him, the woodcutter, fearing the worst, hid behind his arms, too frightened to watch the moment of his demise.

But the tiger did not cut into him with its teeth and claws. It did not push and sniff at him, as it decided where to begin its meal. It did not even bat him about in play as some do with their prey.

It did nothing at all.

One breath became two. One moment turned into another. But before long, the woodcutter, still trembling behind his arms, heard beside him a weak, feeble cry, followed by the rustling of something small and light.

Surprise and curiosity overcame fear. The woodcutter peered out from between his arms and saw that he was lying in a small clearing at the foot of a giant, moss-covered tree. Dazed, he followed the soft sounds to the very base of the tree where there, nestled between the roots, lay a baby girl. She was naked and covered in dirt, but alive and in good health.

Fear melted into compassion. Understanding now the tiger’s intentions, the woodcutter crawled to the infant and swaddled her in his clothes with as much care and tenderness as he could muster. The baby whined then bawled, so unaccustomed was she to the encumbrances. But the woodcutter, leg now forgotten, sat up at the base of the great tree and cradled her in his arms. He felt how light she was and how she moved in his arms, and knew that he had never carried anything heavier or more profound in his entire life.

And so there, deep within the Forest on the Mountain, he whispered to her.

“Hello, don’t cry.”

The words fell and tumbled from his mouth like newborn birds, frightened and new. But as he remembered his voice and his words gained strength, he whispered to her words of delight, adoring her, telling her that she would certainly grow to be a great and noble lady of peerless beauty. He whispered to her words of comfort, calling himself her grandfather, and told her how silly it was of her to cry when she was with him. He whispered to her words of laughter, and told her of his adventures with her mother the Tiger, and how he had been scolded for not listening.

The baby, almost asleep, made a small noise of discomfort and the woodcutter brushed a drop of water from her cheek.

Whispering an apology, he spoke to her words of kindness and marvelled at how blessed she was. He assured her that with such a remarkable beginning, the heavens had undoubtedly written for her the greatest of fates, and how lucky she was to carry it. And, as his voice cracked and dried, and his words ran thin, he whispered to her of himself, of the name he still remembered, and his lonely life on the Mountain.

When the woodcutter had come to himself, he looked up and saw the tiger waiting at the edge of the clearing. Though the tiger had not changed, with its teeth like spears, its claws like knives, and its voice of distant thunder, the woodcutter bowed his head, amazed and ashamed that despite their previous encounters, he had never once realized that the animal was also, and most of all, beautiful.

It held in its mouth a short stout stick which it dropped at the woodcutter’s feet that he immediately saw could be used as a crude cane. With its help, he got onto his feet with the child still in an arm, and very slowly followed it as it led the way back out of the Forest.

When they reached the edge of the trees, the tiger turned back to the woodcutter, coming so close to him and the child in his arms that the woodcutter could feel the warmth of its breath. Despite all that had transpired over the past few days, he froze in fear, and it was all he could do to not flinch or run away.

But if the tiger was aware of the woodcutter’s reaction, it gave no notice and instead came closer, and closer still to the child. Moving so softly so as not to wake her, it pressed its muzzle to the child’s cheek, and held it there.

The child stirred against it, but did not wake.

Then, in a great bound, the tiger leaped away from the woodcutter and raced back into the forest, and was soon out of sight.

By the time the woodcutter reached the village, the sun had already set over the Mountain. His shoulders ached and burned from carrying the child, and the hand holding the cane bled from open sores where blisters had formed and burst. His broken leg felt swollen and stiff, and he knew without looking that he would not be able to walk without an aid for the rest of his life.

But still he kept on, hobbling his way bit by bit until finally, at last, he reached the home of the magistrate.

“Woodcutter!” exclaimed the magistrate, sliding his door open wide and taking in the woodcutter’s battered state. “Woodcutter, where in the heavens have you been?! Are there bandits in our forest? And who is this child? What happened?”

But the woodcutter shook his head, and lifted the child towards the magistrate who moved as if by instinct to catch her up in his arms.

The magistrate looked upon the sleeping infant, and saw that she was wholly beautiful. An emotion that he had never felt before filled him with his next breath, and he was so overcome that any words of surprise or refusal he might have uttered broke in his throat and watered his eyes, forcing him to cough and grunt several times just to stifle the embarrassment of his indignity.

“Woodcutter,” he said, at last. “Are you certain that she is not already without parents to look after her?”

The woodcutter bowed his head in reply.

“Then,” the magistrate said with an air of certain finality. “She will be raised in my house. A poor and wifeless magistrate I may be, but I swear by the heavens and the earth that I will care for and love this child for as long as I am able, and with as much patience and wisdom as any in my house has to offer.”

At this, the woodcutter bowed deeper to the magistrate than he had ever before, who bowed just as deeply in return.

Then the woodcutter, broken but satisfied, touched the sleeping child’s cheek one last time, as lightly as he could. Then he turned and made his slow, painful way back out of the village and up out of the valley, to where his humble, simple, hut waited for him with his rice and tea at the edge of the Forest on the Mountain.