Feral children in mythology and fiction
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- For documented cases of human children raised by non-humans, see Feral child.
Feral children (that is, human children raised by non-human animals) in mythology and fiction are often depicted as having superior strength, intelligence and morals to "normal" humans, the implication being that because of their upbringing they represent humanity in a pure and uncorrupted state.
Thus Enkidu, raised by unspecified beasts, becomes the friend of the hero Gilgamesh (see also Epic of Gilgamesh); the brothers Romulus and Remus, raised by a wolf, become the founders of Rome; Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli, also raised by wolves, becomes the ruler of the jungle. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, raised by apes, has become an iconic hero of novels, comic strips and motion pictures.
Other stories featuring human children raised by other animals, possibly influenced by Mowgli and Tarzan, include Shasta of the Wolves (1919) by Olaf Baker, in which a Native American boy is raised by a wolfpack in the Pacific Northwest, and Jungle-Born (1924) by John Eyton, in which a boy raised by apes in northern India inadvertently saves a teenage girl from her abusive father.
British comic books of the 1960s and 1970s seemed particularly fond of such stories. "The Wild Wonders" in Valiant (fl 1970s) are two boys lost on a Scottish island and raised in a normal environment, developing their own language; returned to human civilization at about a decade old, they become superb athletes and enjoy many comic adventures.
In "Fishboy", written by Scott Goodall (uncredited), (1968 - 1975 in Buster), the hero of the title was abandoned on a remote island as a baby, implausibly learned how to breathe underwater and to communicate with aquatic fauna, and grew webbed fingers and toes.
Goodall also created "Kid Chameleon" (1970-1972) in Cor!!). Raised by reptiles in the Kalahari Desert after the murder of his parents, Kid Chameleon wears a suit of lizard scales that can change colour to camouflage him like his namesake the chameleon (actually his camouflage is much better, because the artist simply lets the background colours show through his outline, making him almost invisible). In keeping with the heroism of such children, both Fishboy and Kid Chameleon spend most of their time using their special abilities to help humans in trouble and defeat stereotypical villains.
Jane Yolen's Passager (1996), the first of the Young Merlin trilogy of short novels, depicts a slightly more realistic view of such childhood. Abandoned in a Welsh forest at the age of seven years, the boy who will become Merlin lives in the forest for a year nearly as well as its natives, until a falconer who is used to domesticating normal animals captures him and begins the long and difficult task of educating him in human behaviour.
More recently, the title character of Miyazaki Hayao's 1997 anime film Princess Mononoke (real name San) was raised by a wolf god. San is drawn into a deadly conflict between the forest gods and the humans whose presence seems to threaten them.
The French comic book (bande dessinée) Pyrénée (1998), by Regis Loisel and Philippe Sternis, features a girl who is raised by a bear and taught wisdom by a blind old eagle in the French Pyrenees. This story has won critical acclaim, but has also drawn some criticism because the girl is naked - a factor which might prevent the comic from appearing in English translation, especially in America.
Another comic that features a little girl and a bear, Little Dee is a webcomic where a prevocal human who was lost in a forest is adopted by a bear, dog and vulture. Though some inadvertent similarities exist to Pyrénée, the strip is pure fantasy (with the characters living in a cave and occasionally flying planes or cooking or similar) and focuses more on the natives and their issues of handling a human, though occasionally it reflects on the pathos of the situation. [1]
In Karen Hesse's The Music of Dolphins, a young girl called Mila is found after having been raised by dolphins for over a decade. In the book, Mila is taken to a clinic with other undomesticated human young, none of whom adapt to main-stream humanity as easily as she does. However, in the end of the book, Mila returns to the dolphin pod, showing her rejection of human society.
In the series starting with Through Wolf’s Eyes by author Jane Lindskold, a young girl's family and colony are killed by a fire, and she is the only survivor. She is then taken in by the "Royal Wolves" who speak their own language with gestures and signals. Because Firekeeper had already learned a human language before going to live with the wolves, she was able to return to human society and became a valuable asset to the royalty, but she found that humans were not as noble as the wolves she loved as family. It is her greatest wish to become a wolf herself and leave the humans behind again.
In the Kennedy-Miller film Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, a character called the "Feral Kid" lives in the wasteland near the refinery settlement. He flips, growls when displeased and has a fascination for the Gyro Captain's autogyro. The Feral Kid wears shorts and boots made from hide, hunts and defends himself using a lethal metal boomerang. He has access to the refinery compound via the chicken tunnel. Whether he acts as "shepherd" to the chickens while they are outside the settlement walls is not known. The Kid is befriended by Max who gives him a tiny musical box. After helping Max deal with the bandits he escapes with the refinery occupants and eventually becomes the "Leader of the Great Northern Tribe".
The Monarch from the Cartoon Network Adult Swim show, The Venture Bros., was raised by monarch butterflies in his youth. He wears a monarch butterfly costume with a crown, showing his "royal" status.
The Quality Comics hero Black Condor, was a boy raised in Mongolia by highly intelligent condors, gains the improbable power of flight and later becomes a superhero.
In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land, Valentine Michael Smith is a human raised by Martians on Mars, as he returns to Earth in early adulthood. The novel explores his interaction with — and eventual transformation of — human culture. The title of the book is a quotation of Moses.
In Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's novel The Little One (also known as Space Mowgly), a human from Earth, Piere Semyonov, has been raised by an alien non-humanoid civilization after his parents' spaceship crashed onto an uncharted planet. After his discovery by the Terran scientists, several attempts to integrate him back to human society were undertaken, but all were in vain.
In the Warhammer 40,000 Universe, Lion El Jonson, the Primarch of the Dark Angels Space Marine Legion, was abandoned in the dark jungles of Caliban for much of his early life. He could only roar and scream in rage and frustration and it was at adolescence where he had his first human contact. He became rather civilised after being found by the Paladins of Caliban, but still possessed a terrible inner rage and many other traits he had acquired while within the jungles.
The persona of Buckethead, a composer and guitarist, was supposedly raised by chickens.
Nell is a drama film giving an account of a young woman who is not a wild or feral child but is raised by her paralyzed mother in an isolated cabin who has to face other human beings for the first time.
World War Z by Max Brooks contain many references to feral children - in this case, children who were separated from normal humanity for the duration of the zombie war, and were forced to live in the wild, contending not just with the problems of survival but also the hazard posed by the walking dead. The novel suggests they formed a kind of rudimentary social or "pack" structure with basic tool-using abilities, and in most cases were capable of being slowly rehabilitated.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Mother was A Lovely Beast (subtitled 'A Feral Man Anthology Fiction and Fact About Humans Raised By Animals) edited by Philip José Farmer (1974)
- Biography of Geoff Bass - A Life History
