Parrot who brings the fairies’ rejuvenating apples

Overview

A king’s beloved female parrot obtains permission to visit her home for six months, promising a token of continuing affection. Courtiers follow her to a poor nest on a windswept riverbank, and the king reflects on the power of attachment to home. After raising young, she visits the Garden of the Fairies, takes two small rosy apples from an enchanted tree and returns to court.

The suspicious king tests one apple on his hound. The dog dies, and the king immediately kills the parrot by wringing her neck. The remaining apple is thrown into his garden, where it quickly grows into a fruit-bearing tree. Its supposed poison earns it the name Tree of Death. An aged sweeper and his wife eat the fruit expecting death but become young instead. A courtier’s subsequent rejuvenation convinces the king, and the older members of his court share the same transformation.

Diviners explain that a serpent in the fairy garden had licked the first apple, contaminating it with venomous saliva. This explanation is given through their divination, while the fruit’s restoration of youth is repeatedly narrated. The king commemorates the innocent bird with a shrine, where the story says subjects and distant pilgrims honor her as a saint. She is not restored to life. The account names neither a real shrine nor a historical cult, and its serpent-poison mechanism is not a scientific claim. This female royal favorite differs from Shelton’s male parrot king and is preserved as its own witness.

Origins & earliest records

Upper Indus Panjabi tales in Charles Swynnerton’s English collection

Records & interpretation

Complete story and ending read; critical printed pages visually checked.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Indian Nights’ Entertainment; or, Folk-Tales from the Upper Indus

   Charles Swynnerton · 1892

   XVIII, The King and the Parrot, pp.37–43

Family & connections

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Primary records and illustrations

References

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1. Historical primary English translationCornell scan of Swynnerton (1892), XVIII, The King and the Parrot, pp.37–43Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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