Valli and the old man in the millet field

Valli was raised among the hill people, the Kuravar, and set to guard a millet field from the birds. She was, in the telling, the daughter of the hills in every sense, found as a child in the forest and brought up by its chief.

Murugan does not come to her as a god. He comes as a hunter, then as a wandering old man asking for water and shelter, and she is kind to him without knowing who he is. The story is full of disguise and delay, and it is often told with real comedy: the suitor keeps having to hide when her family appear.

When she will not be persuaded, Murugan calls on his brother. Ganesha comes as a wild elephant crashing out of the forest, and Valli, frightened, runs into the old man's arms. Then, and only then, he shows her who he is.

Where the marriage to Deivanai is given by a father, this one is sought. Tamil devotion has always loved that difference: the god who has everything goes down into a millet field in disguise and asks.

Tiruttani is the temple most closely connected with Valli, and the hill of Vallimalai nearby keeps its own memory of her childhood. In folk song and drama the story appears in countless versions, and it is one of the places where Murugan is most plainly a Tamil god of the hills.