Toomai of the Elephants

1893 short story by Rudyard Kipling

"Toomai of the Elephants" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling about a young elephant-handler. It was first published in the December 1893 issue of St. Nicholas magazine and reprinted in the collection of Kipling short stories, The Jungle Book (1894).^[1] The character Petersen Sahib is thought to be modelled on India-born English naturalist George P. Sanderson (1848–1892).^[2]

The story was filmed in 1937 as Elephant Boy directed by Robert Flaherty and Zoltan Korda, starring Sabu. The story was also produced in 1973 as the TV series Elephant Boy starring Esrom Jayasinghe.

Plot

Big Toomai, the boss driver of elephants, takes little pleasure from his work, but his 10-year-old son, Little Toomai, loves the elephants and they understand his kindness. Asking to go on a hunt, his father tells him he can go when he sees the elephants dance, which is something that no man has ever seen an elephant do but later he will.

References

^ "Toomai of the Elephants". Reader's Guide. The Kipling Society. Retrieved 17 March 2013. Notes edited by Alan Underwood and John Radcliffe
^ Tasker, Sir Theodore (1971). "Petersen sahib". The Kipling Journal. Archived from the original on 20 November 2007.

Sources

Toomai of the Elephants. London: Macmillan and Co., 1937 ("the photographs illustrating this edition are from the London Film Production Elephant Boy ... most of these photographs were taken in India by Mrs. F. H. Flaherty")

External links

Toomai of the Elephants at Wikipedia's sister projects

Media from Commons
Texts from Wikisource

The story and notes on kipling.org.uk
Toomai of the Elephants — online eBook format (public domain)

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

Books

The Jungle Book (1894)
The Second Jungle Book (1895)
All the Mowgli Stories (1933)

Mowgli stories

"Mowgli's Brothers"
"Kaa's Hunting"
"Tiger! Tiger!"
"Letting in the Jungle"
"Red Dog"

Characters

Mowgli
Baloo
Bagheera
Akela
Raksha
Kaa
Hathi
Shere Khan
Bandar-log
King Louie

Adaptations of
Mowgli stories

Disney
franchise

Film

The Jungle Book (1967)
The Jungle Book (1994)
The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story (1998)
The Jungle Book 2 (2003)
The Jungle Book (2016)

Television

TaleSpin (1990–91)
Jungle Cubs (1996–1998)

Music

Soundtracks	The Jungle Book (1967) The Jungle Book (2016)
Songs	"Colonel Hathi's March" "The Bare Necessities" "I Wan'na Be like You" "Trust in Me" "That's What Friends Are For" "My Own Home"

Video games

TaleSpin (Nintendo) (1991)
TaleSpin (TurboGrafx-16) (1991)
TaleSpin (Sega) (1992)
The Jungle Book (1993)
The Jungle Book Groove Party (2000)

Related	Disney Infinity 3.0 (2016) Disney Magic Kingdoms (2017) Disney Mirrorverse (2022) Disney Speedstorm (2023)

Other

The Jungle Book: Alive with Magic
Colonel Hathi's Pizza Outpost
Once Upon a Studio (2023)

Other
adaptations

Live-action film	Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book (1942) The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (1997) Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
Animated film	Adventures of Mowgli (1967–1971)
Television	Mowgli's Brothers (1976) Jungle Book Shōnen Mowgli (1989–90) episodes Mowgli: The New Adventures of the Jungle Book (1998) The Jungle Book (2010–2020)

Other stories

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
"Toomai of the Elephants"

Adaptations of
other stories

Elephant Boy (1937 film)
The White Seal (1975 animated film)
Elephant Boy (1973 TV series)
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1997 book)

The Third Jungle Book (1992) (Book)
A dzsungel könyve (Musical)
Djungelboken (Play)
Bagheera Fountain
Law of the jungle
The Jungle Book and Scouting
- The Wolf Cub's Handbook
Mowgli syndrome

v t e Rudyard Kipling
Novels	The Light That Failed (1891) The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892) Captains Courageous (1896) Kim (1901)
Collections	Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) Soldiers Three (1888) The Story of the Gadsbys (1888) In Black and White (1888) The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888) Under the Deodars (1888) Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888) From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889) Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry) Many Inventions (1893) The Jungle Book (1894) "Mowgli's Brothers" "Kaa's Hunting" "Tiger! Tiger!" "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" The Second Jungle Book (1895) "Letting in the Jungle" "Red Dog" All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895) The Seven Seas (1896, poetry) The Day's Work (1898) Stalky & Co. (1899) Just So Stories (1902) The Five Nations (1903, poetry) Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) Rewards and Fairies (1910) The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction) Debits and Credits (1926) Limits and Renewals (1932) Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940) A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)
Poems	"The Absent-Minded Beggar" "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'" "The Ballad of East and West" "The Beginnings" "The Bell Buoy" "The Betrothed" "Big Steamers" "Boots" "Cold Iron" "Dane-geld" "Danny Deever" "A Death-Bed" "The Female of the Species" "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" "Gentleman ranker" "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" "Gunga Din" "Hymn Before Action" "If—" "In the Neolithic Age" "The King's Pilgrimage" "The Last of the Light Brigade" "The Lowestoft Boat" "Mandalay" "The Mary Gloster" "McAndrew's Hymn" "My Boy Jack" "Recessional" "A Song in Storm" "The Sons of Martha" "Submarines" "The Sweepers" "Tommy" "Ubique" "The White Man's Burden"
Short stories	".007" "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly" "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" "Bread upon the Waters" "The Broken-Link Handicap" "The Butterfly that Stamped" "Consequences" "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin" "Cupid's Arrows" "The Devil and the Deep Sea" "The Drums of the Fore and Aft" "Fairy-Kist" "False Dawn" "A Germ-Destroyer" "His Chance in Life" "His Wedded Wife" "In the House of Suddhoo" "Kidnapped" "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris" "Lispeth" "The Man Who Would Be King" "A Matter of Fact" "Miss Youghal's Sais" "The Mother Hive" "The Other Man" "The Rescue of Pluffles" "The Ship that Found Herself" "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo" "The Taking of Lungtungpen" "Three and – an Extra" "The Three Musketeers" "Thrown Away" "Toomai of the Elephants" "Watches of the Night" "Wireless" "Yoked with an Unbeliever"
Related	Bibliography Bateman's (house) Indian Railway Library Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer Iron Ring Law of the jungle Aerial Board of Control My Boy Jack (1997 play) Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary) My Boy Jack (2007 film)
Family	Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife) Elsie Bambridge (daughter) John Kipling (son) John Lockwood Kipling (father) MacDonald sisters (mother's family) Stanley Baldwin (cousin) Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt) Edward Burne-Jones (uncle) Philip Burne-Jones (cousin) Edward Poynter (uncle) Alfred Baldwin (uncle)