Feral children of myth, legend and classical literature

ok wasnt sure exactly where to post this lol so if its in the wrong place feel free to move it


well i wanted to post something and can you belive it has taken 4 days to come up with a subject haha, ah well here goes....

i wanted to discuss feral children ie children so called raised by animals.
i will show examples from the past and present of feral children that were found.
i am doing this purly for learning and sharing somthing but feel free to contribute

Paris of Troy

his mother was hecuba and father was king priam of troy.
paris was abondoned as a baby because of a dream that either his father or mother had that a firebrand would set fire to the city of troy, this firebrand was interpreted to be paris.
it was suggested by Aesacus (paris's brother) that paris should be killed, but rather than her son be killed,his mother decided to have him sent to mount ida (not an unusual form of infacide in those days) .
But paris was allegadly found by a she bear and was suckled by her. a sheperd found him after 5 days and took him home and raised him.

The Leopard Boy of Dihungi

www.feralchildren.com...

Like so many feral children, the leopard boy of Dihungi was stolen while his mother worked in the fields — in this case, she was cutting rice near her village of Dihungi. The villagers had found and killed two leopard cubs two days previously, and the mother had been haunting the outskirts of the village.

Found three years later
Three years later, a sportsman killed a leopardess close to the village, and reported that there were still cubs alive. The villagers eventually captured two cubs and the boy, who was identified by and returned to his parents.

Leopard-like speed
When found, the Leopard boy of Dihungi was able to run at speed on all fours, but when Stuart Baker saw him some five years later he was managing to walk. He had an acute sense of smell, and when first returned to the village would seize any fowl within his reach, tear it to pieces, and eat it.

The Lobo Wolf Girl of Devil's River

www.feralchildren.com...

In May of 1835, the Wolf Girl of Devil's River was born to Mollie Dent, who had gone with her husband to the Beaver Lake area to trap. Mollie was having problems with the birth, so her husband, John Dent, rode to get help from a Mexican-run goat ranch on the Pecos Canyon, but he was struck and killed by lightning before he could return accompanied by the Mexican couple. By the time the Mexicans reached Mollie, she had died, apparently in childbirth. Wolf tracks in the vicinity suggested that the newborn infant had been devoured by the lobo wolves of the area.

Sighted after 10 years
However, in 1845 a boy saw a girl, in the company of a pack of lobo wolves, attacking a herd of goats. Less than a year later, a Mexican woman at San Felipe saw two large wolves and a girl devour a freshly-killed goat. She observed the girl run off — first on all fours, and then on two legs.

Capture… and escape
A hunt was mounted, and after three days the Lobo Girl of Devil's River was caught after fighting wildly to keep her freedom. She was taken to a ranch (really just a two-room hovel) and locked in. Her howling attracted answering cries from wolves far and wide, and a large pack of wolves rushed the corrals, attacking the goats, cows and horses. Shooting started, and in the confusion the girl managed to remove the board nailed over the window and make her escape.

Sighted seven years later
In 1852, a group of frontiersmen surveying a better route to El Paso saw a girl suckling two wolf cubs on a sand bar in the river, who then ran off, carrying the cubs. She would have been 17 in that year; but she was never seen again.

If you are intrested you can get more information on feral children from this site
en.wikipedia.org...

or here
bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk...

U2U sent

please read this thread about quoting from another site;

www.abovetopsecret.com...


[edit on 18-5-2006 by masqua]

Recommended Reading -

The Wild Boy of Aveyron by Jean Marc Gaspard Itard

The Wild Boy of Burundi: A Study of an Outcast Child by Harlan L. Lane

Both books are a bit dry, but there are interesting tidbits to be had.

It seems that feral children have made small marks throughout history.
Romulus and Remus, Burundi boy, The Paris 'Pip', possibly the children
of The Woolpit and some surmised that Casper Hauser may have been
feral.

I know from texts that most of the children who are found and placed
back into human society tend not to live very long. Also from accounts,
some of their senses seem heightened and with some of the older kids,
the idea of walking upright is a constant problem.

I've heard that female wolves can be very maternal, although whether
leopards, jaguars and the like, would show the need to rear a human
infant, I don't know.
With respect, The Lobo Girl of Devil River seems alittle too much like a
story-line to a B movie. It may be true... but.

One of the traits of feral children seems to be a low tolerance of light,
some prefer night time. The whole idea of human children being able to
survive against all the odds indicate to me that we may be looking at
life and existence wrong! I don't know.

The brains of feral children also have a tendancy to be smaller and less developed. for example feral kids after a certain age like 4 or 5 cannot learn human languages. This furthers the scientific notion that children need human interaction starting form infancy.

i vaguely recall there was a boy in France, Victor i think that called him,
sometime between the WorldWars.

~~~

thinking about it, wasn't 'Tarzan", although fictional,
wasn't that character a highly polished, victorian era creation, of a ferel child?

..thought provoking thread starter,
kudos

Originally posted by St Udio
i vaguely recall there was a boy in France, Victor i think that called him,
sometime between the WorldWars.

~~~

thinking about it, wasn't 'Tarzan", although fictional,
wasn't that character a highly polished, victorian era creation, of a ferel child?

..thought provoking thread starter,
kudos

Hmm... you've got me thinking now, yeah Victor something.
Didn't he enjoy roaming the country side at night and was said
to have acute eyesight for darkness?

I think he never actually learned to speak, but I may be wrong.

The Tarzan story may have arose from the idea of Victorian/Edwardian
ideals leaving the poor and unlearned behind in Great Britain and the story
may have reflected the guilt caused.

Read this one when I was a kid:


But many cases of "feral children" wasn't because they were raised by animals, but more because their parents WERE the animals:
Genie

Dogs:
Oxana
Malaya

No proof of who raised the child:
Traian

Abandonment:

Chickens?

[edit on 15-8-2006 by jlc163]

Originally posted by jlc163
Read this one when I was a kid:

Why not add what this book is about, jlc163?

The link shows a book cover with a couple of wolves but there's no description at all.

Does this even have anything to do with feral children?

*snort* If it was the one I remember (it was a long time ago), yes, it was. But the feral child was a lot older, almost a teen, so could speak very well on her own. She deliberately went to become a part of a wolf pack...but I can't remember why.

Thanks for your description...now we all know a bit more.

*snort right back at ya*

There may be much myth surrouding these phenomena, but apparently the condition exists that children are raised without what we call human socialization. Here are some documented cases.

Genie

www.feralchildren.com...

www.nbc10.com...

tvnz.co.nz...=html

More:

en.wikipedia.org...-life_cases


[edit on 2006/8/16 by GradyPhilpott]