Publication
The heading to “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” in The Jungle Book (1894). A four and an eight-line verse in the First American and Standard editions, but a single twelve-line verse in the First English Edition. Collected as a Chapter Heading in Songs from Books (1912) and subsequent collections.
Notes on the Text
[Page 163, line 2] Red eye … Wrinkle Skin Mongoose and cobra respectively. See the story p. 174 line 5: ‘when a mongoose’s eyes grow red, he is angry’.
[Page 163, line 11] the hooded Death Nag, the cobra. Cobras have a distinctive hood below their head.
[P.H..]
©Philip HolbertonFONT>