L39B. Pie tree. .21.23.

The tree grows from a flat cake (pie, etc.) and usually bears flat cakes instead of fruit.

Kirati, Rajasthani, Ho, Oriya, Sinhalese, Maldives.

Tibet - North-East India. Kirati (? eastern Nepal) [brother asks sister for bread; sister: now, first we must sow wheat; etc., all operations; when the bread is ready, the cake rolls up, turns into a banyan tree; the boy climbs on it; a rakshasi comes, threatens to cut down the banyan tree, the boy falls into her bag; on the way she goes to relieve herself, the boy runs away; at home the rakshasi finds in her bag only the sand put by the boy; she returns to the banyan tree, everything is repeated, a nest of wasps instead of sand; the third time the rakshasi goes straight to the house, goes to call her aunt, tells her daughter to cook the spoils; she likes the boy's black hair, he promises to make her hair as beautiful, cuts off the head, puts on her dress, cooks the meat; tells the returning rakshasi that he does not want to eat, he will go upstairs to sleep; takes with him a flail and a millstone; [the rakshasi screams that she has eaten her daughter; the rakshasi runs out, is killed by a thrown flail; the aunt is killed by a millstone; all is well]: Heunemann 1980, No. 16: 129-133; Newar [the mother died, Punkhu Maicha's father took a new wife, who has her own daughter; the stepmother tyrannizes PM with work; the sheep regurgitates boiled rice and lentils, feeds PM; the stepmother's daughter saw and reported; she orders to slaughter the sheep; the sheep asks not to eat its meat, but to bury the bones, a tree will grow on which there will be rice cakes yomari; PM climbed the tree and ate them; a couple of demons asked to throw the cakes down to them; they refused to pick them up, having fallen on the garbage; they asked to get down and give them into their hands; they grabbed PM and brought them to themselves; they left, ordering to cook rice pancakes; mice: give us some crumbs, we'll tell you something; she gave them; the mice ate their fill and said that the demons had gone to sharpen their knives; they had to take the jewelry, leave a spit with coal on each step of the staircase and run; when the demons came, the door was locked from the inside, and the spit answered with the voice of the PM; the demons broke down the door - there was no one inside; the PM ran to the house, but no one opened the door for her; then she said that she had brought treasures, and the stepmother opened the door; having learned how it had happened, she sent her own daughter to the pie tree; she did not give the mice any pancakes; at night she lay down between the demons; they ate her alive; in the morning the mother preens and waits for her daughter; the crow: while the mother preens, the daughter's skeleton hangs under the eaves; the father and the PM left the stepmother]: Vaidya 1990, No. 1: 2-10.

South Asia. Rajasthanis [a widow fasts to improve her karma; her son wants to fast with her; she persuades him not to and he agrees only after she bakes him his favorite delicacy - gulguli (sweet cakes); he ate six gulguli, buried the seventh, watered it, ordered it to grow into a tree on which gulguli grow; climbed it, began to eat, in place of each plucked one, two grew; a witch with her daughter come; the witch asks for a gulguli too; does not allow her to throw it down, asks to put it in a turban and let it down; pulls the turban, the boy falls, the witch puts him in a bag with thorns and carries him to eat; on the way he asks to be allowed to drink in the lake, dives, swims away; climbed the gulguli again; the witch comes again, having changed her face; the same (she carries it away in a water barrel); at home the witch tells her daughter to mash the caught one with a pestle, cook it, and she goes for wine; the boy shows the witch's daughter her teeth; she wants the same beautiful ones for herself; he says that his mother mashes him with a pestle every day, but before that they must exchange clothes; the boy smashes the witch's daughter's head, cooks the meat; the witch eats it; the cat asks to give it to her, since the mother is eating her daughter, but the witch is drunk and does not listen; she finds her daughter's finger, but does not want to believe it; the next morning the groom comes for his daughter; on the way the pretended bride gave a sign to stop to relieve herself, ran away; the witch came to the gulgul tree again; this time the boy did not fall, but dropped the prepared stone on the witch, killing her; from then on the mother and son always ate gulguls and distributed them to the neighbors]: Dinesh 1979: 99-114; ho [a boy tends cattle, his mother gives him bread every day; one day he leaves an uneaten piece, from it a tree grows, bearing bread instead of fruit; one day he climbs the tree for bread; a rakshasi comes, asks for bread, tells him not to throw it away - it will get dirty, she is too old to catch it; the boy comes down, she puts him in a sack, carries it away; while she was going down to the water to drink, travelers heard the boy's cries, free him, he puts stones in the sack; the rakshasi's daughter found them at home; the next day the rakshasi lured the boy in the same way, brought him to her daughter, went to get firewood; the daughter told the boy that she would crush his head; he asked her to show him how, crushed her head, put on her clothes, cooked the meat; the rakshasi ate the daughter and fell asleep; the boy killed her with a stone, returned home]: Bompas 1909: 464-465; Oriya[a shepherd boy planted a rice cake, a tree grew on which the fruits were cakes; the ogress took the form of an old woman, asked for cakes; the boy offered her to collect the ones that had fallen, but she needed fresh ones; he came down, she pulled him down from the tree, put him in a sack, and carried him away; she went to drink water; at that time the plowmen released the boy, put stones in the sack; the witch's daughter found them there; the same thing the next time, the witch carried the boy home; he persuaded her daughter to release him, promising to teach her how to grow beautiful hair (by rubbing goat's milk into her head); the witch went after the boy again; he offered her to open her mouth, threw a crowbar into it, killing the witch]: Mohanti 1960, no. 6: 47-50 (translated in Kudinov, Kudinov 1995): 280-284; Oriya [a boy planted a cake, a tree grew on which cakes were like fruits; an ogress took the form of an old woman, asked for cakes; the boy offered her to collect those that had fallen, but she needed fresh ones; he came down, she put him in a bag, carried him away; on the way she went off to relieve herself; the boy ran away, putting thorns and stones in the bag; at home the ogress saw that the prey was gone; the same thing the next day, but the ogress did not stop, brought the bag to her daughter, told her to cook food, and she herself went to the blacksmith to sharpen her teeth; the daughter turned out to be adopted, kidnapped; she hid the boy, boiled the birds; so they live for some time; the girl pretends that she is afraid to be alone; the ogress says that the gold is under the floor, and she can only be killed by pulling out one of the hairs on her head; the girl began to comb her hair, pulled out a hair; she and the boy took the gold, got married]: Mohanti 1975: 103-105; Sinhalese [a yakshini has a son and a daughter, the son brought flour under his fingernail, the pot filled to the brim, the mother fried some cakes (kevooms), ate them all with her daughter, the son got only one, which fell into the ashes (the mother said that the owners took all the flour); the son planted the cake, a tree grew, and kevums ripened on it; the yakshini asks him to throw her a kevum; she says that it fell on spit, in the mud, in the dung; she asks him to take the kevum in his mouth and jump into the sack; she carries the boy away, leaves the sack for a while, people untie it, the boy puts lumps of mud in his place, returns to the tree; the yakshini tells her daughter to kill the boy, put the cup with the blood under the stairs, let the meat fry; the girl found only lumps of earth in the sack; the yakshini goes to the tree again (the same, the boy puts rat-catching snakes in his place); the third time the yakshini brings the boy; he offers the yakshini's daughter to comb her hair, slaughters her, leaves the meat to fry, puts a cup of blood, takes a pestle, mortar and pestle, climbs the tree; the yakshini begins to eat her daughter's meat, the boy begins to sing about it; she climbs the tree, he throws the pestle, mortar and pestle at her, killing the yakshini]: Volkhonsky, Solntseva 1985, No. 162: 368-371; Maldives[a poor old woman found a coin and gave it to her daughter Koe to buy a pie; on the way home K. ate half the pie, and then, hiding the pie under a leaf, went off to relieve herself; a crab dragged it into his hole; a tree grew in that place, on which instead of fruit there were pies; and no matter how many of them K. ate, their number did not decrease; one day an ogress came up, asked her to throw the pie down; said that it had fallen into the sea; etc.; asked not to throw it, but to squeeze it between her toes and give it to her; the ogress pulled K. by the leg, put it in a sack, brought it to her daughter and told her to cook it while she washed herself; the daughter, out of curiosity, untied the sack; K. suggested that they first exchange clothes and jewelry, and then see who slept soundly; when the cannibal's daughter closed her eyes, K. cut off her head, chopped her body into pieces, boiled it; climbed a tree; the cannibal ate her daughter; K. began to sing about it, answering that she was talking to a crow, a bat (and then to others), but then told how it all happened; the cannibal began to try to knock down the tree; K. jumped down, ran; the cannibal followed, but fell into a pit with lime, caught fire, burned]: Romero-Frias 2012, No. 18: 65-71.