''The Second Jungle Book'' is a sequel to ''
The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' is an 1894 collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who ...
'' by
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
.
First published in 1895, it features five stories about
Mowgli
Mowgli () is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mowgli stories featured among Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kiplin ...
and three unrelated stories, all but one set in India, most of which Kipling wrote while living in
Vermont
Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
.
All of the stories were previously published in magazines in 18945, often under different titles. The 1994 film ''
The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' is an 1894 collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who ...
'' used it as a source.
Contents
Each story is followed by a related poem:
# "How Fear Came": This story takes place before Mowgli fights
Shere Khan
Shere Khan () is a fictional Bengal tiger featured in the Mowgli stories of Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book, Jungle Book''. He is often portrayed as the main antagonist in the book's media adaptations, itself an exaggeration of his role in ...
. During a drought, Mowgli and the animals gather at a shrunken Wainganga River for a "Water Truce" where the display of the blue-colored Peace Rock prevents anyone from hunting at its riverbanks. After Shere Khan was driven away by him for nearly defiling the Peace Rock,
Hathi the elephant tells Mowgli the story of how the first tiger got his stripes when fear first came to the jungle. This story can be seen as a forerunner of the ''
Just So Stories''.
# "
The Law of the Jungle
"The law of the jungle" (also called jungle law) is an expression that has come to describe a scenario where "anything goes". The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines the Law of the Jungle as "''the code of survival in jungle life'', now usuall ...
" (poem)
# "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat": An influential Indian politician abandons his worldly goods to become an ascetic holy man. Later, he must save a village from a landslide with the help of the local animals whom he has befriended.
# "A Song of Kabir" (poem)
# "
Letting in the Jungle": Mowgli has been driven out of the human village for witchcraft, and the superstitious villagers are preparing to kill his adopted parents Messua and her unnamed husband. Mowgli rescues them and then prepares to take revenge.
# "Mowgli's Song Against People" (poem)
# "The Undertakers": A
mugger crocodile
The mugger crocodile (''Crocodylus palustris'') is a medium-sized broad-snouted crocodile, also known as mugger and marsh crocodile. It is native to freshwater habitats from south-eastern Iran to the Indian subcontinent, where it inhabits marsh ...
, a
jackal
Jackals are Canidae, canids native to Africa and Eurasia. While the word has historically been used for many canines of the subtribe Canina (subtribe), canina, in modern use it most commonly refers to three species: the closely related black-b ...
and a
greater adjutant stork, three of the most unpleasant characters on the river, spend an afternoon bickering with each other until some Englishmen arrive to settle some unfinished business with the crocodile.
# "A Ripple Song" (poem)
# "The King's
Ankus": Mowgli discovers a jewelled object beneath the Cold Lairs, which he later discards carelessly, not realising that men will kill each other to possess it. Note: The first edition of ''The Second Jungle Book'' inadvertently omits the final 500 words of this story, in which Mowgli returns the treasure to its hiding-place to prevent further killings. Although the error was corrected in later printings, it was picked up by some later editions.
# "The Song of the Little Hunter" (poem)
# "Quiquern": A teenaged
Inuk
Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labr ...
boy and girl set out across the
arctic
The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
ice on a desperate hunt for food to save their tribe from starvation, guided by the mysterious animal-spirit
Quiquern. However, Quiquern is not what he seems.
# "Angutivaun Taina" (poem)
# "
Red Dog": Mowgli's wolfpack is threatened by a pack of rampaging
dhole
The dhole ( ; ''Cuon alpinus'') is a canid native to South, East and Southeast Asia. It is anatomically distinguished from members of the genus ''Canis'' in several aspects: its skull is convex rather than concave in profile, it lacks a third ...
s. Mowgli asks
Kaa
Kaa is a fictional character from ''The Jungle Book'' stories written by Rudyard Kipling. In the books and many of the screen adaptations, Kaa is an ally of protagonist Mowgli, acting as a friend and trusted mentor or father figure alongside Bag ...
the
python to help him formulate a plan to defeat them.
# "Chil's Song" (poem)
# "The Spring Running": Mowgli, now almost seventeen years old, is growing restless for reasons he cannot understand. On an aimless run through the jungle he stumbles across the village where his adopted mother
Messua is now living with her two-year-old son, and is torn between staying with her and returning to the jungle.
# "The Outsong" (poem)
Characters
*
Mowgli
Mowgli () is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mowgli stories featured among Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kiplin ...
– a young human boy of Indian ancestry who has been raised by wolves since infancy.
* Father Wolf – an
Indian wolf who is Raksha's mate.
*
Raksha – an
Indian wolf
* Mang – a
bat
Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...
*
Bagheera
Bagheera ( / ''Baghīrā'') is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in '' The Jungle Book'' (coll. 1894) and '' The Second Jungle Book'' (coll. 1895). He is a black panther ( melanistic Indian leopard) who serves as frie ...
– a
black panther
A black panther is the Melanism, melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical Rosette (zoology), rosettes are al ...
*
Baloo
Baloo (from ''bhālū'' "bear") is a main fictional character featured in Rudyard Kipling's '' The Jungle Book'' from 1894 and '' The Second Jungle Book'' from 1895. Baloo, a sloth bear, is the strict teacher of the cubs of the Seeonee wolf pa ...
– a
bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...
*
Kaa
Kaa is a fictional character from ''The Jungle Book'' stories written by Rudyard Kipling. In the books and many of the screen adaptations, Kaa is an ally of protagonist Mowgli, acting as a friend and trusted mentor or father figure alongside Bag ...
– an
Indian python
The Indian python (''Python molurus'') is a large Pythonidae, python species native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is also known by the common names black-tailed python, Indian rock python, ...
* Tabaqui – a
golden jackal
The golden jackal (''Canis aureus''), also called the common jackal, is a wolf-like canid that is native to Eurasia. The golden jackal's coat varies in color from a pale creamy yellow in summer to a dark tawny beige in winter. It is smaller a ...
*
Akela – an Indian wolf
* Jacala – a
mugger crocodile
The mugger crocodile (''Crocodylus palustris'') is a medium-sized broad-snouted crocodile, also known as mugger and marsh crocodile. It is native to freshwater habitats from south-eastern Iran to the Indian subcontinent, where it inhabits marsh ...
* The Red Dogs –
dhole
The dhole ( ; ''Cuon alpinus'') is a canid native to South, East and Southeast Asia. It is anatomically distinguished from members of the genus ''Canis'' in several aspects: its skull is convex rather than concave in profile, it lacks a third ...
s
* Ikki – an
Indian crested porcupine
*
Hathi – an
Indian elephant
The Indian elephant (''Elephas maximus indicus'') is one of three extant recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant, native to mainland Asia. The species is smaller than the African elephant species with a convex back and the highest body po ...
* Grey Brother – one of Mother and Father Wolf's cubs.
* Ko – a
carrion crow
The carrion crow (''Corvus corone'') is a passerine bird of the family Corvidae, native to western Europe and the eastern Palearctic.
Taxonomy and systematics
The carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus ...
Derivative sequels
* ''
The Third Jungle Book'', 1992 book by Pamela Jekel, consisting of new Mowgli stories, in an imitation of Kipling's style.
* ''
The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo'', 1997 film starring Jamie Williams as
Mowgli
Mowgli () is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mowgli stories featured among Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kiplin ...
, but the film's story has little or no connection with the stories in Rudyard Kipling's ''The Second Jungle Book''.
See also
*
Works of Rudyard Kipling
*
Feral children in mythology and fiction
References
External links
''The Jungle Book'' Collection a website demonstrating the variety of merchandise related to the book and film versions of The Jungle Books
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Jungle Book, The
1895 short story collections
Short story collections by Rudyard Kipling
19th-century British children's literature
The Jungle Book
Macmillan Publishers books
British children's books
Children's short story collections
Animal tales
1890s children's books
Sequel books
Children's books set in India