When Lord Baden-Powell formed the junior section of Scouting in 1916, he drew inspiration from the work of his friend, the author Rudyard Kipling.

Baden-Powell named the junior Scouts Wolf Cubs, borrowing from Kipling’s short stories collected together in The Jungle Book. The book’s central character is a young boy called Mowgli, who is raised by a wolf pack after being left in their care by his parents.

In his adventures, Mowgli meets a range of jungle animals, including Bagheera, the black panther, and Baloo, the bear.

Cubs today still draws some of its customs and symbols from The Jungle Book, including the Grand Howl, which begins each meeting, and the names of the leaders, who are drawn from the characters in the book. The pack leader is usually called Akela, after the leader of the wolf pack in the book.

Read more about The Jungle Book.