Mowgli

Mowgli
The Jungle Book character
Mowgli by John Lockwood Kipling (father of Rudyard Kipling). An illustration from The Second Jungle Book (1895)
First appearance	"In the Rukh" (1893)
Last appearance	"The Spring Running" (1895)
Created by	Rudyard Kipling
Information
Nickname(s)	Man-cub, Frog
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Family	Raksha and Father Wolf (foster parents); Messua (foster mother); Wife (the daughter of Abdul Gafur); and unnamed son.

Mowgli /ˈmaʊɡli/ is a fictional character and the protagonist of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book stories. He is a feral child from the Pench area in Seoni, India, who originally appeared in Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" (collected in Many Inventions, 1893) and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his novels The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book (1894–1895), which also featured stories about other characters.

In the stories, the name Mowgli is said to mean "frog", describing his lack of fur. Kipling made up the name, and it "does not mean 'frog' in any language other than the language of the forest."

Kipling stated that the first syllable of "Mowgli" should rhyme with "cow" and it is pronounced this way in Britain and some European countries, while in the United States it is almost always pronounced to rhyme with "go".

The Mowgli stories, including "In the Rukh", were first collected in chronological order in one volume as The Works of Rudyard Kipling Volume VII: The Jungle Book (1907) (Volume VIII of this series contained the non-Mowgli stories from the Jungle Books), and subsequently in All the Mowgli Stories (1933).

"In the Rukh" describes how Gisborne, an English forest ranger in the Pench area in Seoni at the time of the British Raj, discovers a young man named Mowgli, who has extraordinary skills in hunting, tracking, and driving wild animals (with the help of his wolf brothers). He asks him to join the forestry service. Mueller, the head of the Department of Woods and Forests of India as well as Gisborn's boss, meets Mowgli, checks his elbows and knees, noting the callouses and scars, and figures Mowgli is not using magic or demons, having seen a similar case in 30 years of service. Muller also offers Mowgli to join the service, to which Mowgli agrees. Later, Gisborne learns the reason for Mowgli's almost superhuman talents: he was raised by a pack of wolves in the jungle (explaining the scars on his elbows and knees from going on all fours). Mowgli marries the daughter of Gisborne's butler, Abdul Gafur. By the end of the story, Mowgli has a son and is back to living with his wolf brothers.