Aunt Tiger or Auntie Tigress () is a Taiwanese

folktale Oral literature, orature, or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung in contrast to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used va ...

with many variations. The story revolves around a tiger spirit on the mountain who turns into an old woman, abducts children at night and devours them to satisfy her appetite. It is often used to coax children to fall asleep quickly. The most well-known version was compiled by Taiwanese writer Wang Shilang, where the setting of the story is in a Hakka settlement in Taiwan.

Legend

A tiger spirit must eat a few children to become a human, so it descends from the mountains to find children to eat. After going down the mountain, it hides outside a house and eavesdropped, knowing that the mother is going out and there is only a pair of siblings in the house, so it turns into an aunt to trick the child into opening the door and entering the house. Sleeping until midnight, Aunt Tiger ate the younger brother and made a chewing sound. The sister asks Aunt Tiger what she was eating when she hears it. Aunt Tiger says she is just eating peanuts, and then throws a piece of the brother's finger to the sister. The sister calmly pretends to go to the toilet then hides in the tree outside the door. When Aunt Tiger finds out and is going to eat the sister, the latter cleverly asks Aunt Tiger to boil a pot of hot water (otherwise it is hot oil) for her, and asks Aunt Tiger to hang the hot water on the tree because she wants to jump into the pot by herself. When Aunt Tiger hangs the hot water to the tree with a rope, the sister asks Aunt Tiger to close her eyes and open her mouth. Then, she pours the boiling water down Aunt Tiger's throat, killing the tiger. One variation is that there are two girls who are sisters instead of the brother and sister combo.

Variations

There are also stories with similar plots circulating in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and other countries, similar to the story of

Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" () is a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th-century European Fable, folk tales. It was later retold in the 19th-century by the Broth ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. Similar storylines can also be found in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

in which the aunt is a wolf or bear. In addition, such a story with two children and an adult who intends to murder them is also in

Hansel and Gretel "Hansel and Gretel" (; ) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch ...

Grimm's Fairy Tales ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', originally known as the ''Children's and Household Tales'' (, , commonly abbreviated as ''KHM''), is a German collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, Jacob Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm, first publish ...

. In South Korea, there is a folktale called

Janghwa Hongryeon jeon Janghwa Hongryeon jeon (literally ''The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon'') is a Joseon-era Korean folktale. Story Introduction Once upon a time, there was a man named Muryong whose wife had a dream where an angel gave her a beautiful flowe ...

with a similar plot. The purpose of this type of story may be to warn children not to believe strangers who take the opportunity of the absence of adults to enter houses and kidnap children.

Analysis

Tale type

Chinese folklorist and scholar established a second typological classification of Chinese folktales (the first was by

Wolfram Eberhard Wolfram Eberhard (March 17, 1909 – August 15, 1989) was a professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley focused on Western, Central and Eastern Asian societies. Biography Born in Potsdam, German Empire, he had a str ...

), and abstracted a tale type he indexed as number 333C, "The Tiger Grandma". In this tale type, a child-eating creature (ogress, tiger or wolf) pretends to be an older female relative of the children, and pays them a visit after their mother leaves. The ogress is allowed to enter the children's house, devours one of them, but the survivor escapes to another place. In that regard, researcher Juwen Zhang indicated that type 333C, "Wolf grandma", is an example of local Chinese tale types that are not listed in the international

ATU Atu may refer to: * Atu, a character in Samoan mythology * Atu Bosenavulagi, an Australian rules footballer * Atu, Iran, a village in Iran * Atu Moli, New Zealand rugby union player * Atu'u, a village on Tutuila Island, American Samoa ATU may r ...

index. The tale has also been compared to the European tale ''Little Red Riding Hood'', classified in the international index as type ATU 333, and to ''The Wolf and the Kids'' (tale type ATU 123).

Adaptations

Animated films

Public Television Service Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation (PTS Foundation/Public Television Service Foundation, ), also called Public Television Service (PTS, ), is the first independent public broadcasting institution in Taiwan, which broadcasts the Public Te ...

and

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speakin ...

co-produced a clay animation on this story. In 2000, it won the Children's Jury 1st Prize in the category of Television Animation at the 17th

Chicago International Children's Film Festival In 1983, Facets Multi-Media founded the Chicago International Children's Film Festival (CICFF), the first competitive festival of films for children in the U.S. The impetus for the Festival came from a need to introduce new, culturally diverse fi ...

Nursery rhymes

Aunt Tiger's nursery rhyme of the name
Auntie Tigress
was included in the pop music album released by Taiwanese singer Wawa in 1986.

Films

* In 2005, the movie ''Hu Gu Po'' directed by Alice Wang () used the folklore as its plot. * In 2007, the movie titled ''Auntie Tigress'', directed by Wei Ling Chang, also based its plot on this folklore.

Books

* In 2006, Aunt Tiger's

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The ima ...

drawn by Taiwanese illustrator Eva Wang () was published. * In 2009,

America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

n writer

Laurence Yep Laurence Michael Yep ( zh, t=葉祥添, s=叶祥添, p=Yè Xiángtiān, j=Jip6 Coeng4 Tim1; born June 14, 1948) is an American writer. He is known for his children's books, having won the Newbery Honor twice for his ''Golden Mountain'' series. I ...

published the book titled ''Auntie Tiger'', in which he recounted the famous Taiwanese folklore.

References

{{Reflist Hakka culture in Taiwan Taiwanese legends Taiwanese folklore Anthropomorphic tigers Fairy tales about talking animals Female characters in fairy tales Fictional tigers Mythological anthropophages Mythological tigers Shapeshifters