In Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, what is the title of the opening Mowgli story?

The opening Mowgli story in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is titled “Mowgli’s Brothers.”

The story introduces Mowgli after a tiger, Shere Khan, attacks a wolf den and demands that the human child be handed over. The wolf family shelters Mowgli, while the wolf pack debates whether he may remain. Baloo speaks for him, and Bagheera secures his acceptance by paying a price in the form of a freshly killed bull.

“Mowgli’s Brothers” establishes the central conflict between Mowgli and Shere Khan and introduces the jungle society that shapes his childhood. Kipling originally published it in the 1894 collection The Jungle Book, where it appears before “Kaa’s Hunting” and “Tiger-Tiger.”

Readers sometimes confuse the story title with the name of the whole collection or with later Mowgli episodes. The title refers to the wolves who raise Mowgli, not to biological human siblings.