The Star Fruit Tree

Tonight’s story is from Vietnam. In the Vietnamese countryside, lots of families grow a star fruit tree in the front yard. The ripe fruit is golden yellow, and if you slice it across, every slice is a five-pointed star. It tastes sweet and a little sour.

Long ago, two brothers lost their parents when they were young. They lived together, worked together and loved each other dearly.

Then the older brother got married. After that he grew lazy and left all the work to his younger brother and his wife. Before long the older brother demanded that they split up their parents’ property. He took the house, the rice fields and the buffaloes. All the younger brother got was a small, leaning hut with a star fruit tree in front of it.

The younger brother and his wife didn’t complain. Every day they went out to work in other people’s fields. When they got home, they watered the star fruit tree and picked off the insects and kept the ants away. With all that care, the tree’s leaves grew bright green and it was covered in little purple flowers.

When the season came, the tree was heavy with ripe golden fruit. The couple were delighted. They planned to pick the fruit and sell it at the market to buy rice.

But one morning an enormous bird with shining feathers flew down and landed in the tree. It pecked at one ripe star fruit, then another, eating happily. The next morning it came back. And the morning after that.

The wife stood under the tree and said sadly, “Bird, this tree is all we have. If you eat all the fruit, how will we live?”

The bird stopped eating, looked down, and said: “For each fruit I eat, I’ll pay you in gold. Sew a bag three spans wide, and bring it along to hold.”

The couple thought this very strange, but they did as they were told. The wife measured her hand span three times on a piece of cloth and sewed a small bag.

The next morning the bird came and swooped down into the yard. The younger brother put on the bag and climbed onto the bird’s back. Up they flew, over silver clouds, over rice fields and mountains, and out over the sea, where blue waves crashed against little islands.

The bird landed on an island covered in gold and jewels that sparkled everywhere. The younger brother went into a cave and picked up some gold and a few gems, just enough to fill his bag three spans wide. Then he stopped. He didn’t take any more.

The bird carried him all the way home. From then on, the couple no longer had to work so hard for other people. They had enough to eat and wear, and they shared with the poor families in their village.

When the older brother heard about this, he rushed over to ask what had happened. The younger brother honestly told him everything. The older brother immediately asked to swap: he would take the hut and the star fruit tree, and his younger brother could have his house and fields. The younger brother agreed.

When the fruit was ripe again, the bird came back to eat. The older brother pretended to complain, just as his brother’s wife had. The bird said again: “For each fruit I eat, I’ll pay you in gold. Sew a bag three spans wide, and bring it along to hold.”

The older brother went home and told his wife to sew a bag three times bigger than his brother’s.

The next day the bird carried him out to the island. Seeing gold everywhere, he picked up more and more. When the bag was full, he stuffed gold into his pockets, his sleeves and his trouser legs. By the time he came out of the cave, he was so heavy he could hardly walk.

The bird flew him home. This time it flew slowly, flapping hard and wobbling from side to side. Halfway across the sea, a huge wave rose up and the bird tilted to avoid it. The bag of gold slipped off its back, and the older brother and his enormous bag fell into the deep sea and never came back.

And back in the village, the star fruit tree in the younger brother’s old yard still flowers purple every year, and then hangs heavy with golden fruit.