The Coconut Tree

Grandfather sat back in his chair trying to make sense of a rather incoherent story little Radha was telling him about a neighbor’s son, who spent his time getting other children into trouble.

“What you mean,” grandfather said with a smile, “is that this boy deliberately gets other children into trouble by telling falsehoods.”

“That’s what I have been telling you,” Radha said rather indignantly.

“People who go around making mischief in this way are really wicked,” grandfather said. “It reminds me of the story of the tale-bearer and the coconut.”

“Please tell us the story,” Radha cried, clapping her hands.

This story goes back many centuries, said grandfather, and it took place in Burma, which was then ruled by a king who ruled the people justly and wisely.

One day, three criminals were brought before the king to be tried and sentenced. The first was accused of stealing food from the marketplace. The king said the man obviously stole because he was hungry and had no money. So, the king ordered that the man be given work as a road-mender.

The second person was a woman accused of being a witch who cast spells on people she did not like. But the evidence was so confusing that the king ordered the woman to be set free. The third case was a man accused of malicious slander.

When the prosecutor announced that the man had been convicted many times in the past for the same offense, the king glared at the prisoner and in a stern voice announced that mercy could not be shown to such an incorrigible rogue, and ordered the man to be taken outside the city walls and be beheaded.

As it so happened, the following morning, one of the court officials was walking by the place of the execution and was surprised to see the man’s head lying on the ground.

As he turned away in disgust, the head called out, “Go and tell your king he knows nothing about justice.”

The official took to his heels and ran, and didn’t stop running until he reached the palace, where he poured out his story to the king. At first, the king refused to listen to such an unlikely tale, but the official swore that he was telling the truth and demanded that the king send one of his ministers to the place of the execution to verify the truth.

In the end, the king sent his chief minister to find out the truth. The minister on his return said, “The head is certainly there, Your Majesty, but it certainly cannot talk. So I am afraid this official is the victim of his own imagination.”

In anger that a court official should be guilty of telling such a story, the king ordered that the official be taken to the same spot and suffer the same fate as the criminal.

The poor official was immediately taken to the place of execution, and as his head was struck from his shoulders, the criminal’s head called out, “As in life, so in death I can still cause trouble.”

When the king heard of this, he realized that the official had spoken the truth and it had cost him his life. The repentant monarch ordered that the head of the criminal be buried to the depth of two fully grown men so that it could cause no further harm.

This was done, but within hours a miracle occurred. A tree grew on this spot, and it reached its full height in a day. It was a coconut tree, and ever afterwards the people called the coconut tree the tale-bearer’s tree.

To end his story, grandfather said, “That is why, children, a tuft is always left on top of the coconut. For underneath that tuft are the two eyes and the mouth of the tale-bearer. And if we remove that tuft, then that old tale-bearer will start making trouble again.”