And so here we meet Ketrin for the first time. His first appearance is loosely based on Mowgli's arrival in the village in Kipling's "Tiger! Tiger!", except that Mowgli is only 11 or 12 in that story and Ketrin is 18. Mavrida is based on Messua, the woman who believes Mowgli is her long-lost son, and Borvinn is inspired by Buldeo the evil chief hunter. Messua's husband was alive but unnamed; Mavrida's husband Ruthyar (named as an obvious homage to Rudyard Kipling) was lost during a hunt many years ago.

As for Sherinel, he isn't based on a Kipling character, but takes some inspiration from Bruno in Edgar Pangborn's short story "Tiger Boy". When Bruno and the half-wild title character meet they fall in love and prepare to run away, but Bruno's village elders are hunting Tiger Boy, leading to a desperately tragic conclusion. With all respect to Pangborn's superb writing skills, I decided that when my village boy and wild boy met the outcome would have to be happier.

There will undoubtedly be sceptics who will claim that an 18-year old boy raised by animals could never be rehabilitated into human society, that he wouldn't have learned to walk upright and consequently would suffer from permanent spinal curvature, that his teeth would have all rotted, that all that raw meat would have damaged his liver, and that the neural pathways necessary for the acquisition of speech couldn't develop at that age...

Well, these issues *are* dealt with, or at least handwaved, in the course of the story. Suffice it to say that Ketrin can and will learn human speech very quickly, and that the word "sex" will feature prominently in his vocabulary.