Stories

The Eight Royal Trees - Jan

Once upon a time, there lived a powerful king. He had seven queens, who were very pretty but the youngest of them all, queen Maria, was the most beautiful. However, none of the queens were happy, because they had no children.

One day, the royal maids informed the king that the youngest queen, Maria was pregnant and would soon give birth to the heir to the throne. The king became very happy. He began to give lot of attention and gifts to the youngest queen. But, the older wives became jealous of this and their jealousy began to grow day -by -day.

When the due day finally arrived, the youngest queen gave birth to eight beautiful babies: seven handsome boys and one beautiful girl.

The jealous queens were unable to bear this news. Queen Maria was still unconscious. The jealous queens stole each child, killed them and buried them in the palace gardens, before the King could even see them. Then they replaced each boy child with a puppy dog and the baby girl with a small kitten. After this, they called the king to come quickly and see the animals. They told him to banish the queen sinceshe was a witch as she gave birth to animals.

When the youngest queen woke, she was told about the King's orders. She protested her innocence to the King, but she was still banished from the Kingdom and forced to live in exile, never knowing about the truth.

Years passed by and from the earth where the wicked queens had buried the eight children, there grew seven Champa trees and one Parul tree.

One day, the wicked queens and the king, while taking a walk saw the trees with the lovely flowers. The flowers on the trees were so beautiful and attractive, that they wanted to pluck them immediately. But, when they tried to do so, the branches lifted higher into the air out of reach. Then, a soft voice said, “Call Queen Maria, see if she can pluck the flowers.”

The king searched for the queen Maria. The spies traced Queen Maria in a hermit's ashram across the border. She was brought to the palace and King asked her to pluck the flowers. She plucked them one by one. All the babies emerged from the flowers and were reunited with their mother.

The king was overjoyed to see his family reunited at last and asked his wife to forgive him and to return to the palace forever.

The king then came to know about the evil plot of the older queens and he immediately ordered life imprisonment for them and never spoke to them again.

After the evil Queens were imprisoned, the youngest Queen and the King lived happily ever after with their eight beautiful children.

Moral: No good can ever come either of envy or of wrong-doing

Questions:

Q1.Why was the king always sad?

Q2.Why did the king bestow special care and gifts to the youngest queen?

Q3.What did the older queens do to the children and why?

Q4.What did the children turn into?

Q5. How were the children reunited with their parents?

Glossary

Heir : A person legally entitled to the property or rank

Banish : Send away from a country or a place as legal punishment

Witch : A woman with evil magic powers