The Coconut Lady

Summary

Prince Alok, the youngest of seven princes, wishes for a wife because his sisters-in-law prepare his food. He meets a sadhu and confides his lack of a wife. The sadhu advises him to bring a coconut from a palm. Alok knocks down one fruit, but when he tries to get another, the first jumps back into the palm.

He returns empty-handed; the sadhu sends him again for only one. This time Alok obeys and brings the coconut, which the sadhu says will grant him a beautiful wife. Alok stops at a potter's house to rest.

While he sleeps, the coconut becomes a beautiful lady in a red saree. The potter's wife, wanting to improve her social status, trades clothes with the coconut lady, then drags her outside and drowns her in a well. The potter's wife takes her place. Alok wakes, sees the wrong woman, and brings her to the palace.

The coconut lady transforms into a flower in the well, which Alok brings home. The false bride crushes its petals and throws them out the window, where an amaranthus tree sprouts. The false bride orders its leaves cooked; the cook hears the leaves talk, becomes scared, and discards them in the garden, where a coconut tree grows.

A cattle-herding boy takes a coconut; the lady springs out and is adopted by his mother. Alok's horse grazes near the family; the coconut lady pets it, leaving a golden handprint. Alok notices the handprint, goes to the house, finds the coconut lady, and learns the truth. He immures the potter's wife in the palace and marries the coconut lady.

Analysis

This story, known in folklore studies as ATU 408 "The Three Oranges," follows a prince who, after being mocked by his sisters-in-law, sets out to find a fairy princess. He succeeds and brings her home, but a low-status, ugly woman murders her and takes her place. The fairy princess then cycles through various transformations until she regains her human form.

Scholar Christine Shojaei Kawan broke the tale into six parts, identifying the core as steps three through five: the prince discovers the fruits and frees the maidens inside; he leaves the princess in a tree by water; a servant sees her reflection, replaces her, and a transformation sequence begins; finally, the prince and princess reunite and the impostor is punished. The maiden can emerge from citrus fruits, pomegranates, other fruits, or even eggs. In the index Oral Tales of India, this motif is listed as "D211.

Transformation: man to fruit." The tale's central feature is the substitution of the fairy wife with a false bride. In Indian versions, the false bride does not mistake the fruit maiden's reflection for her own. Instead, the hero faints, the fruit princess goes for water, and a lower-caste girl swaps clothes with her and drowns her.

Variants

Stith Thompson and Warren Roberts noted the close proximity between types 403, "The Black and the White Bride", and 408, "The Three Oranges", both dealing with the substituted bride theme. To differentiate them, they remarked that the heroine must be replaced by a female antagonist unrelated to her. Thompson's second revision of the international type index listed 17 variants of tale type 408 in India and South Asia. In some Indian tales, the heroine does not come from a fruit but is still replaced and undergoes transformations; these stories are indexed as the same type.

Zacharias P. Thundy published a Kadar tale titled The Invisible Woman. In it, a beautiful princess born from a coconut is invisible. Two Pulaya youths grow up together; their father asks what moonlight is. The younger says it is reflected sunlight and a good time to marry the invisible coconut princess.

The father expels him. The youth reaches the house of an old lady who provides flowers for the invisible princess. He helps her separate flowers, and she says he is destined to marry the princess. Shiva appears, gives him a clay jar and bamboo stick, and instructs him to circle a palm tree seven times so it bends for him to pluck a fruit, which he must not open.

The youth follows the instructions. On the way, he feels thirsty and considers opening the fruit but resists. The coconut opens and the princess emerges. The youth worships her; she accepts, and they exchange marriage vows, after which he falls asleep.