Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger [Review]

[Heavy spoilers for this story, but I still encourage you to read it for the sake of nuance.]

"The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger" is a short story written by L. Frank Baum in 1913. It was a part of a canon series of Oz short stories released in a book entitled "Little Wizard Stories of Oz."

This is my favorite of the short stories by far. It tells the story of the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger on a day they decide to simply put aside there holdbacks and be as ferocious and violent as their species is generally known to be. The Hungry Tiger decides he is going to go out and eat the first fat baby that he sees within the Emerald City, and the Cowardly Lion intends to roar, frighten people, and tear a person into sixty pieces with his razor sharp claws.

What is fascinating about how this story begins is that they very much agree with one another that this will be done and then proceed out of the palace together to go do it. At that point in the story, they are talking about very horrible things that they want to do. The Hungry Tiger is tired of being hungry all the time and finally wants to set out and eat a person. And the Cowardly Lion is tired of being so sweet and cowardly and wants to take his place as an alpha animal.

As they tread through the Emerald City, they happen upon a crying child. This, of course, gets the attention of the Hungry Tiger who leaps over to it. The Cowardly Lion fully expects the Tiger to devour him up and even asks him if he is going to do it. Completely shocked, the Hungry Tiger ridicules the Lion for even suggesting that he would hurt a little crying baby who is obviously upset for losing his mother.

Soon after, the mother in question bursts out of a nearly house, crying out for the safety of her child... when she trips and falls, hurting herself. Here, the Cowardly Lion sees his opportunity to rip someone into sixty pieces. He leaps towards the woman... before asking her if she is all right and offers to carry her back into the house. When the Hungry Tiger asks him if he is going to tear her into sixty pieces, the Lion ridicules him for even suggesting that he could ever tear up a woman who hurt herself while trying to rescue her child.

In the end, the two return to the palace and resign themselves to being who they are. The Cowardly Lion will forever be cowardly, and the Hungry Tiger will forever be hungry. They will always be what they are for the simple reason that they are good and wonderful. And possibly the only satisfaction they will have is that they have one another to sulk about the fantasies they have... but will never achieve.

The story is available online, and it is very much worth reading. I hope you enjoyed my review.

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