1.
Music and drumming. FATHER WOLF and MOTHER WOLF appear at the mouth of their cave, which is in the side of a mountain. It is early evening. We can only see the eyes of the wolves in the gloom of the cave.
FATHER WOLF: (Narration.) It was a warm evening in the Seeonee hills when a wolf woke from his nap. He scratched, yawned and stretched his claws.
MOTHER WOLF: (Narration.) His wife lay with her long, grey jaws across her cubs.
CHIL the kite appears.
FATHER WOLF: Argh. It is time to hunt.
CHIL: Good luck, Chief of Wolves. Strong teeth go with your noble children.
FATHER WOLF: Itâs Chil the kite. The eyes of the jungle.
CHIL: Shere Khan the tiger has shifted his hunting grounds. They say heâll hunt among these hills until the next moon.
FATHER WOLF: He has no right! By the laws of the jungle, he canât change his quarters without due warning.
CHIL: Be careful. I can hear him below in the thickets.
CHIL swoops off.
FATHER WOLF: (Narration.) From the river, they heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.
(To MOTHER WOLF.) To begin a nightâs work with that noise.
MOTHER WOLF: Ssh! Itâs neither cattle nor buck he hunts tonight. Itâs man.
The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr. It grows to a full-throated roar of a tiger charging. FATHER WOLF peers down to watch.
MOTHER WOLF: Did he miss?
FATHER WOLF: The fool had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutterâs camp fire. He burned his foot.
SHERE KHAN gallops about, the fire trailing from his paws. He disappears with a crash.
MOTHER WOLF: Somethingâs coming towards the cave. Get ready.
The baby MOWGLI is crawling up towards them.
FATHER WOLF: A Mancub! Look!
MOTHER WOLF: Is this a Mancub? Iâve never seen one.
MOWGLI has entered the cave and started to gnaw on a bone. The wolf cubs surround him.
FATHER WOLF: Heâs altogether without hair. I could kill him with a prod of my paw. But see â he looks up and isnât afraid.
SHERE KHAN , still limping, approaches the cave. FATHER and MOTHER WOLF step forward and become visible.
FATHER WOLF: (To SHERE KHAN .) Shere Khan does us great honour.
SHERE KHAN: A Mancub went this way. Its parents ran off. Give it to me, Father Wolf.
FATHER WOLF: Wolves only take orders from the head of their pack. The Mancub is ours. To kill if we choose.
SHERE KHAN: I am Shere Khan. Donât speak to me about choosing.
MOTHER WOLF: And I am Mother Wolf. I say the Mancub shall not be killed. Heâll live to run with the pack and hunt with the pack. In the end, cattle-thief, heâll hunt you. Now go!
SHERE KHAN: Each dog barks in its own yard. Weâll see what Akela and the pack say about this protection of Mancubs. The cubâs mine. Heâll come to my belly in the end.
SHERE KHAN leaves.
FATHER WOLF: Itâs true that the cub must be shown to the rest of the pack. Will you keep him, Mother Wolf?
MOTHER WOLF: He came naked, by night, alone and hungry, yet he wasnât afraid. Look, heâs pushed one of my cubs to the side already. Of course Iâll keep him. Lie still, little frog. Mowgli the Frog, Iâll call him.
MOWGLI: Goo.
FATHER WOLF: What will the pack say? Iâve heard of Mancubs being raised by wolves, but never in these parts. Itâs something we have no memory of. I wonder what will come of it.
Music.
2.
FATHER WOLF: (Narration.) Father Wolf waited until the cubs could run a little. Then on the night of the pack meeting, held once a month under the full moon, he took the cubs, Mowgli and Mother Wolf to Council Rock â a hilltop covered with huge boulders and bushes where a hundred wolves could hide.
MOTHER WOLF: (Narration.) Akela, due to his cunning and experience, was the leader of the pack. Below him sat wolves of every size, shape and colour.
FATHER WOLF: (Narration.) There was very little talking at the Rock. If the cubs whimpered, Akela would call out:
AKELA: You know the law. Look well, wolves!
MOTHER WOLF: (Narration.) And the mother wolves would nudge their cubs into moon shadows to escape Akelaâs gaze.
FATHER WOLF: (Narration.) Father Wolf brought forward the Mancub, Mowgli the Frog.
(To AKELA.) Venerable Akela. Weâve come to talk about the matter of our Mancub.
AKELA: The law is that if two members of the pack â two other than those who are raising him â speak for a cub, then that cub must be accepted. And protected by the pack. Who else can speak for this cub?
BALOO the bear stands up.
BALOO: The Mancub? I can speak for the M...