Lion

Lion is a formidable but distractible resident of Wild Island, introduced at a moment when his appearance matters more to him than the human trespasser he has caught. His tangled mane leaves him frantic about his mother’s approaching visit; Elmer Elevator recognizes that worry and turns the grooming Lion needs into a way to get free. The scene makes Lion both a danger and an unwitting aid: his appetite creates the immediate threat, while his vanity opens the path out of it.

Identity and Immediate Trouble

Lion is first heard before he is seen, angrily scolding himself over a previous day’s blackberrying. In the clearing, blackberry twigs have caught in his mane. His attempts to claw them out only make the tangles worse, feeding his agitation. The self-directed reprimand gives his anger a comic edge, but does not make the situation safe for Elmer: Lion notices him, charges, and stops only inches away.

Lion asks who Elmer is and where he is going. When Elmer says he is heading home, Lion makes clear that he does not intend to let him pass. He picks Elmer up in his front paws to judge how much food he might provide. His threat is practical rather than mysterious: he is hungry, already upset, and considering eating the boy. Yet when Elmer asks what has upset him, Lion explains the specific worry beneath his temper. His mother is due to arrive that afternoon on Baby Dragon, and he fears she will stop his allowance if she sees his untidy mane. She cannot stand messy manes, as Lion understands it, and her anticipated judgment has become more urgent to him than the stranger in his grasp.

Elmer’s Grooming Bargain

Elmer offers the contents of his pack as a solution, promising the things Lion needs to make his mane tidy. Lion accepts the possibility of help and puts him down, changing the encounter from an imminent attack into a conditional reprieve. The exchange depends on Elmer noticing that Lion’s immediate concern is not hunger alone: the mane, and the consequences of his mother seeing it, can hold his attention.

The pack contains a comb, a brush, and seven hair ribbons of different colors. Elmer demonstrates on Lion’s forelock, where Lion can watch. He explains a sequence of brushing and combing until the twigs and snarls are gone, then dividing the hair into three parts, braiding it, and tying a ribbon around the end. The remedy is deliberately ordinary and exact. Rather than overpowering Lion or finding a way to fight him, Elmer converts a grooming problem into a lesson that Lion can observe and then repeat.

Lion watches the demonstration closely and grows happier as the forelock takes shape. When Elmer ties on a ribbon, Lion is delighted with the result and asks to try the comb and brush himself. Elmer hands them over. The tools that began as part of his travel supplies now occupy Lion completely: absorbed in grooming his mane, he does not notice when Elmer leaves. His change of attention is the decisive consequence of the encounter. Elmer escapes not because Lion has become harmless, but because Lion’s own preoccupation gives him an opening.

Family, Appearance, and the Dragon Ferry

Lion’s concern about his mother supplies the scene with its family pressure as well as its comic motive. He expects her later arrival on Baby Dragon and imagines that the disorder of his mane could cost him his allowance. His fear of being judged is tied to a plainly visible detail: the same mane that has caught blackberry twigs is the feature he must make presentable before she sees him. Lion’s mother subsequently passes a crossroads, making his anticipated visitor part of Elmer’s route through the island, though she does not see him hiding by the signpost.

The Dragon Ferry is not merely background to Lion’s worry. Baby Dragon is being made to carry passengers across the river, and the cat’s account establishes that this work is enforced through restraint and mistreatment. In Lion’s immediate concern, however, Baby Dragon appears as the means by which his mother will arrive. That contrast connects a private, comic anxiety about an untidy mane to the larger conditions imposed on the young dragon. The scene keeps Lion’s perspective narrow, focused on his grooming and his mother’s response, while the surrounding plot gives the crossing a much harsher significance.

Place in the Pursuit

After Elmer leaves, he hurries onward partly because he expects the Wild Boars to become more upset when they see Lion’s mane tied up in ribbons. The grooming episode therefore produces a consequence beyond Lion’s own appearance: the conspicuous change may aggravate the animals pursuing Elmer. At a later stage, the mob rushing toward the river is described as including two furious lions alongside Seven Tigers, Rhinoceros, Gorilla, Wild Boars, and countless monkeys. The account presents Lion as part of a wider animal danger without detailing his individual actions in that rush.

Lion’s episode establishes a pattern important to Elmer’s progress across Wild Island. Direct confrontation would leave Elmer at the mercy of a much stronger animal; attention to a particular worry gives him a safer means of moving on. Lion remains threatening, and there is no evidence that he changes his view of Elmer or deliberately assists him. What changes is the immediate balance of the encounter: the frightened captive becomes the instructor, and the would-be eater, eager to repair his appearance, unknowingly lets his intended meal go.