This is a folk tale from Korea. Persimmon is an Oriental fruit grown predominantly in China, Korea, Japan.

One night, a man-eating tiger entered a village from a nearby forest.

“I am hungry. Let me find someone to eat,” thought the tiger.

Just then, it heard the sound of a baby crying from a house. It peeped into the house through an open window to see the baby with her mother.

“Ah! A baby. I will wait for the mother to leave and grab her,” thought the tiger.

Worried the mother would see, it moved away from the window. Then it sat silently listening to the mother and the baby.

“Please don’t cry, sweetheart,” soothed the mother. However, the baby kept crying. No matter how much the mother comforted her, the baby continued to cry.

After some time, frustrated, the mother said, “If you do not stop crying, I will feed you to the fox.”

But it was of no use. The baby continued to scream.

“Grrrr…this is so annoying. How can a small baby yell so much?” fumed the tiger silently.

“If you do not stop crying, I will feed you to the tiger,” said the mother.

“That’s good,” thought the tiger gleefully. “If the mother herself feeds the baby to me, my work will be easy.”

The baby continued yelling even more.

“What!!! Is the baby not scared of me? But I am the scariest being on this planet. Human beings run when they see me,” thought the tiger.

“Stop crying, baby,” said the mother. Finally, she said, “Here! A Persimmon. Now stop crying.”

The baby stopped crying the next instant.

The tiger was shocked.

“Who is this Persimmon that scared the baby so much that she stopped crying? I better run away from here before the Persimmon comes to catch me,” thought the tiger.

Meanwhile, a thief had also entered the village wanting to steal the cattle. Due to the dark, he assumed that the tiger was a cow and jumped on top.

“Oh, no! It is the Persimmon. It has come to eat me,” thought the tiger panicked. The tiger jumped up and down, growling and trying to dislodge the thief.

Meanwhile, the thief realised his mistake. “T…t…a tiger…I am on a tiger, and it is furious. What do I do? If I try to get off, it will kill me,” he thought.

So he grabbed the tiger’s neck and held on to it tight. Both were frightened of each other. In their fear, the man held on to the tiger’s neck even tighter, almost choking it while the tiger tried hard to dislodge the man. Finally, after a lot of struggle, the tiger dislodged the thief and threw him.

The thief ran away, worried that the tiger would eat him. But the tiger ran away without turning to look, worried the ‘Persimmon’ would catch him.

Meanwhile, inside the house, the baby finished eating the Persimmon. Mother and baby went to sleep blissfully unaware of the uproar outside.