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Overview
The fourth part of “The Lost Camel and Other Tales” contains this cautionary story about hasty judgment. An elderly childless couple raise a parrot as their offspring. Learning from other parrots of a mango tree beyond seven oceans, it flies there with them but saves a fruit for its foster parents instead of eating it itself. The man gives it to his king, who plants it so that all his subjects may eventually share its power to restore youth. When the first tested fruit kills an elderly priest, the king has the donor’s left eye put out. The couple blame their parrot, which accepts death as the consequence of its former-life deeds and asks for burial before they undertake a pilgrimage.
After they kill and bury it, the parrot is explicitly reborn as a green parrot. It drops a fruit before an elderly washerwoman who approaches the supposedly poisonous tree intending to die. Instead, she becomes a girl of sixteen. A second test restores an imprisoned elderly goldsmith’s youth, and the narrator explains that a serpent had accidentally poisoned the earlier specimen. The king opens the tree’s benefits to his subjects; the returned donor also becomes young and regains his lost eye. The closing sentence nevertheless calls the parrot’s loss irreparable: its rebirth has been narrated, but no reunion or recognition by its foster parents is supplied.
This is the southern Indian witness reproduced in Kingscote and Sastri’s collection. The separate endnotes compare Persian and Canarese narratives with different birds, tests and outcomes; those variants are not merged into this parrot’s biography. Its role includes speech, a journey to a wonder-working tree and explicit rebirth. The tale’s karmic explanation of its killing is reported as narrative doctrine, not an endorsement of punishing innocent beings.
Origins & earliest records
Southern Indian narratives in Kingscote and Natesa Sastri’s English collection
Records & interpretation
Complete English chapter, attached notes, edition title and collection preface read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India
XIII, Fourth Part, Story of the Wonderful Mango Fruit, pp.171–177; complete chapter140–186 and comparative notes290–308 read. London: W. H. Allen & Co.; English transcription page markers, not independent print-scan collation.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India
Kingscote and Natesa Sastri; London: W. H. Allen & Co.,1890. XIII, Fourth Part, Story of the Wonderful Mango Fruit, pp.171–177; complete chapter140–186 and comparative notes290–308 read
Cache kingscote-sastri-13.txt; title/preface/introduction checked. Entire 53622-character five-part chapter and34444-character endnotes read; counts are one chapter plus one endnotes section, not inflated embedded-tale totals. Reborn green parrot explicit, closing loss irreparable also retained without invented reunion. Persian parrot/Canarese magpie comparisons remain separate.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical collected narrative and editorial comparisonTales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India — XIII, Fourth Part, Story of the Wonderful Mango Fruit, pp.171–177; complete chapter140–186 and comparative notes290–308 readResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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