Once upon a time, there was a King called the Pomegranate King, and a Queen called the Pomegranate Flower. The Queen passed away, leaving behind two little children: a girl about four or five years old, and a boy who was three. The King was very sad when she died because he loved her very much. He loved his two children a lot too! He got them two helpers: a cook to make their food, and a nanny to look after them. He also made sure they learned to read and write. Soon after his wife’s passing, the daughter of another King lost her husband. She said she would marry another King if he wanted to marry her, and she really wanted to marry the Pomegranate King! So, her father went to visit the Pomegranate King and told him that his daughter wanted to marry him. “Oh,” said the Pomegranate King, “I don’t want to get married again. If I do, the woman I marry might not be nice to my two children. She won’t take good care of them. She won’t hug them and make them feel better when they’re sad.” “Oh, but my daughter will be very good to them, I promise you,” said the other King. “Okay,” said the Pomegranate King, “I will marry her.” And so, they got married.
For a couple of months, everything was fine. But then the new Queen, who was called the Sun Queen, started to hit the poor children and yell at their helpers. One day, she hit the boy’s cheek so hard that it swelled up! When the King came home from work to eat his afternoon snack, he saw the boy’s swollen face. He called the two helpers and said, “Who did this? How did my boy get hurt?” They said, “The Queen hit him on his cheek so hard it swelled up! And she gets really mad at us if we say anything about how mean she is to the children, or how she yells at us.” The King was super angry with his wife for this! He said to her, “I never hit my children! Why would you hit them? If you hit them, I will send you away!” And he stormed off to work, very upset. The Queen was very angry too. So, she told the little girl to go to the market with the nanny. The nanny and the little girl left, not knowing anything bad was going to happen. As soon as they were gone, the Queen took the little boy and told him she was going to hurt him. The boy got down on his knees and begged her to let him live. But she said, “No! Your father is always arguing with me, and being mean to me, all because of you!” The boy begged and pleaded again, saying he would never be naughty anymore. The Queen shook her head, and grabbing a big knife, she cut off his head! Then, she chopped him up and made him into a curry. She buried his head, his fingernails, and his feet in the ground. She covered them up really well with dirt and stomped the ground down so nobody would notice anything was different. When the Pomegranate King came home for dinner, she put the curry and some rice on the table for him. But the King saw that his boy wasn’t there, so he wouldn’t eat. He went looking everywhere for his son, crying a lot. The little girl cried a lot too, because she loved her brother very much. After they looked for him for a long time, the little boy showed up! His father hugged him. “Where were you?” he asked. “I can’t eat dinner without you!” The little boy said, “Oh, I was in the jungle playing with other boys.” Then they sat down to dinner, and the curry turned into a yummy goat curry! The Queen was super surprised when she saw the boy. She thought to herself, “I cut his head off! I chopped him into little pieces, and I made him into a curry, and yet he’s alive!” Then, she went into the garden to see if his head, fingernails, and feet were in the hole where she had buried them. But they weren’t there! The hole was completely empty. She then called a soldier and said to him, “If you take two children into the jungle and hurt them, I will give you as much money as you want!” “Okay,” said the soldier. She brought the children to him and told him to take them to the jungle. So, he took them away to the jungle, but he couldn’t bring himself to hurt them because they were so beautiful! He left them in the jungle near their dead mother’s grave. Then he went back to the Queen, saying he had done what she wanted, and she gave him lots of money.
The poor Pomegranate King was very sad when he saw that his children weren’t at the palace and that they couldn’t be found. He asked his Queen where they were, but she said she didn’t know. She said they had gone out to play and never came back. From the day he lost his children, the Pomegranate King became sad. He didn’t love the Queen anymore; he didn’t like her at all.
Meanwhile, the children lived in a small house built close to their mother’s grave. God had brought her back to life so she could take care of them! But they didn’t know she was their mother; they thought she was just another woman sent to look after them. God also sent a man to teach them. Somehow, the Sun Queen heard that they were still alive in the jungle. She didn’t know how she could get rid of them. So, finally, she pretended to be very sick. She said to the King, “The doctor says that there are two children in the jungle, and he says if you have them killed and bring their livers for me to stand on when I take a bath, then I will get better.” The King sent another soldier to hurt the children, and this soldier hurt them and brought their livers to the Queen. She stood on them while she bathed and then said she felt much better. She threw the livers into the garden. During the night, a tree grew there with two big, beautiful flowers on it! The next morning, the Queen looked out and said, “I will pick those flowers today!” Every day she said she would pick them, and every day she forgot. Finally, one day she said, “Every day I forget to pick those flowers, but today I really will!” And she sent her servant to pick them. So, he went outside, and just as he was about to pick them, the flowers flew up just out of his reach! Then the Queen went down, and when she was going to pick them, they flew up so high that they couldn’t be seen! Every day she tried to pick them, and every day they went high up and came back again to the tree as soon as she had gone. Then the flowers disappeared, and two big fruits grew in their place. The Queen looked out of her window: “Oh, those are such yummy fruits! I’ll eat them all myself! I won’t give any to anybody, and I’ll eat them by myself, nice and quiet!” She went down to the garden, but they flew high up into the sky, and then they came down again. So, this went on, day after day, until she got so upset that she ordered the tree to be cut down. But it didn’t work! The tree was cut down, but the fruits flew high up into the sky, and in the night, the tree grew back, and the fruits came back to it. And so, this went on for many days. Every day she cut down the tree, and every night it grew back, but she could never get the fruits. Finally, she got very angry and had the tree chopped into tiny pieces, and all the pieces thrown away! But still, the tree grew back in the night, and in the morning, the fruits were hanging on it. So, she went to the King and told him that in the garden was a tree with two fruits, and every time she tried to get them, the fruits went up into the air. She had the tree cut down so many times, and it always grew back in the night, and the fruits came back to it. “Why can’t you just leave the tree alone?” said the King. “But I want to see if what you say is true!” So, the King and the Queen went down to the garden, and the Queen tried to get the fruits, but she couldn’t, because they went right up into the air.
That evening, the King went alone to the garden to pick the fruits. The fruits fell into his hand all by themselves! He took them into his room, put them on a little table next to his bed, and lay down to sleep. As soon as he was in bed, a little voice inside one of the fruits said, “Brother!” And a little voice in the other fruit said, “Sister, speak more softly. Tomorrow, the King will break open the fruits, and if the Queen finds us, she will hurt us. God has brought us back to life three times already, but if we die a fourth time, he won’t bring us back to life again.” The King listened and said, “I will break them open in a little while.” Then he went to sleep, and after a bit, he woke up and said, “Just a little while longer,” and went to sleep again. Several times he woke up and said, “I will break the fruits open in a little while,” and went to sleep. Finally, he took a knife and started cutting the fruits open very fast, and the little boy cried, “Gently, gently, Father! You’re hurting us!” So then the King cut more gently, and he stopped to ask, “Are you hurt?” and they said, “No.” And then he cut again and asked, “Are you hurt?” and they said, “No.” And a third time he asked, “Are you hurt?” and they answered, “No.” Then the fruits broke open, and his two children jumped out! They ran into their father’s arms, and he hugged them tight. They cried softly so the Queen wouldn’t hear.
He locked his room up tight and fed and dressed his children. Then he went out of the room, locking the door behind him. He had a small wooden house built that could easily catch fire. As soon as it was ready, he went to the Queen and said, “Will you go into a little house I’ve made ready for you while your room is being fixed?” “Okay,” said the Queen. So, she went into the little house, and that night a man set it on fire! The Queen and everything in it burned up. Then the Pomegranate King took her bones, put them into a tin box, and sent them as a present to her mother. “Oh,” said the mother, “my daughter has married the Pomegranate King, and so she’s sending me some yummy food!” When she opened the box, she was shocked to find only bones! Then she wrote to the King, “What good are bones?” The King wrote back, “They are your bones; they belong to you, for they are your daughter’s bones. She was mean to and hurt my children, so I had her burned!”
The Pomegranate King and his children lived very happily for a while. Their dead mother, the Pomegranate Flower Queen, wanted to see her husband and her children, so she prayed to God to let her visit them. God said she could go, but not as a human. So, he changed her into a beautiful bird and put a pin in her head. He said, “As soon as the pin is pulled out, you will become a woman again.” She flew to the palace where the King lived. There were big trees around the palace. She landed on one of these at night. The guard was lying near it. She called out, “Guard! Guard!” and he answered, “What is it? Who is it?” And she asked, “Is the King well?” and the guard said, “Yes.” “Are the children well?” and he said, “Yes.” “And all the helpers, and camels, and horses?” “Yes.” “Are you well?” “Yes.” “Have you had plenty of food?” “Yes.” “What a silly donkey your King is!” And then she began to cry a lot, and shiny pearls fell from her eyes as she cried. Then she began to laugh a lot, and big, bright rubies fell from her beak as she laughed. The next morning, the guard got up and felt around and said, “What is all this?” talking about the pearls and the rubies because he didn’t know what they were. “I will keep them!” So, he picked them all up and put them in a corner of his house. Every night the bird came and asked about the King and the children and the helpers, and left a lot of pearls and rubies behind her. Finally, the guard had a whole pile of pearls and rubies.
One day, a beggar came and asked for food. Because the guard had no coins, or flour, or rice to give, he gave him a handful of pearls and rubies. “Well,” the beggar thought to himself, “I’m sure these are pearls and rubies!” So, he tied them up in his cloth. Then he went to the King to ask for food, and the King gave him a handful of rice. “What!” said the beggar, “The great King only gives me a handful of rice when his guard gives me pearls and rubies!” And he turned to walk away. But the King stopped him. “What did you say?” he asked, “That my guard gave you pearls and rubies?” “Yes,” said the beggar, “Your guard gave me pearls and rubies!” So, the King went to the guard’s house. When he saw all the pearls and rubies that were there, he thought the man had stolen them from his treasure. The King didn’t have as many pearls and rubies as his guard did! Then, turning to the guard, he asked him to tell him honestly where and how he had gotten them. “Yes, I will,” said the guard. “Every night, a beautiful bird comes and asks about you, about your children, about all your elephants, horses, and helpers. Then it cries, and when it cries, pearls fall from its eyes. Then it laughs, and rubies fall from its beak. If you come tonight, I bet you’ll see it!” “Okay,” said the Pomegranate King.
So that night, the King moved his bed outside under the tree where the bird always landed. At night, the bird came and called out, “Guard! Guard!” and the guard answered, “Yes, sir!” And the bird said, “Is your King well?” “Yes.” “Are the children well?” “Yes.” “And all his helpers, horses, and camels and elephants–are they well?” “Yes.” “Are you well?” “Yes.” “Have you had plenty of food?” “Yes.” “What a silly donkey your King is!” And then she cried, and the pearls came tumbling down on the King’s eyes. The King opened one eye and saw what a beautiful bird it was! And then it laughed, and rubies fell from its beak onto the King.
The next morning, the King said he would give anyone who could catch the bird as much money as they wanted. So, he called a fisherman and asked him to bring his net and catch the bird when it came that night. The fisherman said he would for one thousand rupees. That night, the fisherman, the King, and the guard all waited under the tree. Soon the bird came and asked about the King, about his children, and all his helpers and elephants, and camels and horses. Then about the guard. Then it called the King a silly donkey! Then it cried, and then it laughed, and just as it laughed, the fisherman threw the net over the bird and caught it! Then they shut it up in an iron cage. The next morning, the King took it out and petted it and said, “What a sweet little bird! What a lovely little bird!” And the King felt something like a pin in its head. He gave a pull, and out came the pin, and then his own dear wife, the Pomegranate Flower Queen, stood before him! The King was super happy, and so were his two children! And there was a big party, and they lived happily ever after.
