The Real Mother is an Indian folktale collected by Alice Elizabeth Dracott from Simla, wherein a childless king gives mangoes to his co-wives in order to cure their barrenness, and only the youngest queen bears him children, to the others' jealousy.
The Rajah meets a fakir, who orders him to shake up a tree, gather however many mangoes fall, and give them to his ranees.
She gives birth to six sons and one daughter, but the other ranees blindfold her eyes, take the children and cast them in a potter's field to die.
One day, the Rajah's servants try to pluck the roses from the tree, but a voice from the fakir's grave warns that it is only for their mother.
[3] Researcher Noriko Mayeda and Indologist W. Norman Brown divided Indian variants of type 707 in five groups: (1) quest for wonderful items; (2) reincarnation into flowers; (3) use of wooden horses; (4) children sing a song; (5) miscellaneous.
[5][a][b] French ethnologist Eveline Porée-Maspero noted that Indic variants of type 707 show a theme "well-known" in Indochina: the children are killed and buried, but transform into trees whose flowers only their father or their mother can pluck.
[10] Folklorist Ashraf Siddiqui argued that variants of the tale type were "borrowed" from the Hindus into the oral corpus of the Santals, the Hos and the Birhors.
[11] Bengali folklorist Saratchandra Mitra published a tale from the Ho people, "of the wicked queens type": a raja is married to seven ranis, but has not yet fathered a son.
In this tale, titled How the dead and buried children of the Raja were restored to life, a childless rajah is married to seven ranis, but has no son.
[14] Ethnologist Verrier Elwin collected a tale titled The Jealous Queens, from a Dora-Kurk source in Kaknar, Bastar State.
They beg to a sarai tree to lower its branches for them to climb, then to lead them to a nearby lake to drink water.
The six cowives blindfold the girl, take the boy as soon as he is born and throw him with cord and placenta in the lake, and announce she gave birth to a broom.
However, the jealous co-queens trick their rival into beating the drum many times to annoy their husband and leave her on her own at labour.
The king returns and, seeing the animals, banishes the young queen to the menial position of scaring crows.
The twins are rescued from the dunghill, still alive; the king then restores the junior queen to her rightful place.
[16][17] In a Kol tale translated to German with the title Die Zwillinge ("The Twins"), a king has seven wives.
One day, the seventh wife gives birth to a boy and a girl, who are taken by the jealous co-queens and cast in a clay pit, while they replace them for a stone and a broom.
[18] Author Praphulla Mohanti published a tale titled The Seven Sisters, which he sourced "from the coastal villages of Orissa".
The sisters bury the children in a dung heap, but they are found by a dog and taken to a lake where a Goddess of Waters live.
[19] In a Orissan tale collected by folklorist Sohinder Singh Wanjara Bedi with the title A Jasmine Flower, a king has two co-queens, and, advised by astrologers, marries a third wife, a simple girl named Roopmati.
The co-queens learn of the children taken out of the garbage heap and decide to kill them: they bide their time four years later, when one day the sadhu leaves to collect food for them.
The sadhu returns and buries the children; from their graves, a mango tree sprouts bearing fruits (from the boy's) and a jasmine plant with flowers from the girl's.
Some time later, the six co-wives sight the children near the dung pit and hurriedly throw them in the well near the palace to finally kill them.
[21] In an Indian tale in the Magahi language collected by Ramprasad Singh [hi] with the title "कउवाहँकनी रानी" ("Kauvahankani Rani"), a king has seven co-queens, but no child.
The seventh queen is moved out to a hut, where she shoos away ravens, thus earning her the mocking name of Kauvahankani Rani.
In time, she is ready to give birth, and the co-queens blindfold her: a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, are born, who are places inside a potter's kiln and replaces for bricks and stones to fool the king.
As for the children, the potter finds them inside the kiln and rescues them to raise, fashioning clay horses for them to play with.
The king is puzzled at their play pretend, and they retort that equally strange is a queen giving birth to bricks and stones.
The seventh queen learns of the king's quest, and goes to eat the mango pits and whatever was left of fruit.
The queens learn the children are alive and conspire to eliminate them: they dig up a hole in the garden, shove the twins in and bury them.