The story of Murugan's courtship and his union with the daughter of the hunters, Valli, is the most important of all Tamil myths of the 초 marriage of a god. In the Sanskrit tradition, Skanda is either an eternal brahmacārin (bachelor) 또는 the husband of a rather colourless deity, Devasena, the Army of the Gods. In Tamil, in contrast, the earliest reference to a bride of Murugan is to Valli and there can be no doubt whatsoever that Valli is the 더 많이 인기 and 더 많이 important of Murugan's two brides. Hence, I do regard the lovely myth of Murugan and Valli as an indigenous-autochthonous myth, a Dravidian myth; it also contains some of the oldest indigenous fragments of myth to survive, and some of the most ancient conceptual and ideological apparatus of the Tamils.

The standard version, considered 의해 Tamil devotees of Murugan as canonical and definitive (although not the only one current!), is found as the very last (24th) canto of the sixth book of Kacciyappa's Kantapuranam (composed around 1350 AD in Kanchipuram); entitled Valliyammai tirumanappasalam, it has 267 stanzas. Here is its brief summary:

There is a mountain called Valli Malai 또는 Valli Verpu, not far from the village of Merpati, in the Tontainatu country. In a village beneath the 언덕, 힐 lived a hunter called Nampi; all his children being boys, he longed for a little girl. On the mountain slope, an ascetic 의해 name of Śivamuni was engaged in austerities. One 일 a 가젤 영양, 가 젤 went by, and the ascetic was aroused 의해 its lovely shape; his lascivious thoughts made the 가젤 영양, 가 젤 pregnant. The daughter of Mal incarnated in the embryo.

In due time, the 가젤 영양, 가 젤 gave birth to a girl in a pit dug out 의해 the women of the hunter-tribe when they searched for the tubers of edible 얌, 참 마 (valli). The female deer, having round out that she had given birth to a strange being, abandoned the child which was discovered 의해 the hunter-chief Nampi and his wife. Overwhelmed with joy, they took the little girl to their hut and named her Valli.
Murugan assumed the form of a hunter and, as soon as he arrived at Valli's field, he addressed the lovely girl

When Valli reached the age of twelve, she was sent to the millet field - in agreement with the custom of the hillmen – to guard the crop against parrots and other birds, sitting in an elevated platform called itanam (paran), and chasing the birds and other beasts away. The sage Narada, who visited Valli-malai and saw the girl, went to Tanikai to informed god Murugan about Valve's exceptional beauty and her devotion to the god of the hunters.

Murugan assumed the form of a hunter and, as soon as he arrived at Valli's field, he addressed the lovely girl enquiring after her 집 and family. However, at that moment Nampi and his hunters brought some 음식 for Valli (honey, millet flour, valli roots, mangoes, 우유 of the wild cow) and Murugan assumed the form of a 나무, 트리 (venkai, Pterocarpus bilobus).