Once upon a time, there was a King who was married to 7 wives. Each wife bore a child, and each wife had her own cravings. Queen one loved apples, Queen two loved pears, Queen 3 loved oranges, Queen four loved plums, Queen five loved mangos, and Queen six loved bananas, and Queen seven didn't love any fruit.
While each queen had her own craving of fruit she loved, the King was determined to find something that Queen seven would love herself. So he sought out to the local farmer's market with his servants.
He went around to each of the vendors, eyeing every fruit. He even sampled some of them to see if he liked them, but at last nothing grabbed his attention or taste buds for his seventh queen. As he walked to the last fruit vendor he saw, there was a beautiful women behind the table. She was clothed in fine linens, had long dark hair, and was younger than his original seven wife. The young women was selling a weird looking fruit. It was the shape of a star but tasted sweet as can be. He decided this was the perfect fruit for his seventh wife, but he was very interested in the young woman behind the table. He took all the star shaped fruit she had, and invited her back to his kingdom.
Once she came back to the kingdom, he offered to marry her. She was reluctant at first, but decided she could be the younger woman in his life. With being the younger woman, she was intimidated by the older seven women and the bearing of children. The younger women tried and tried to make herself the only wife the King had, but he refused.
Then one day, the younger wife convinced the King to vanish the other 7 women. And he did so because he loved his younger wife the most.
The King was upset because while each of his older seven wives bore his children, he didn't know that each one bore a son. One of those son's would have been the heir to his Kingdom, but he listened to his younger wife who he loved very much.
Once the seven wives were gone, it was just the King and the younger wife. They spent every day and every night together, but she was not able to bore any children.
As upset as the King was, he secretly asked his servants to look for his original seven wives who bore his children, but they were no where to be found. The servants searched and searched for the women but they were gone.
The younger women had sent the far far away where absolutely no one could find them, and they were to raise their children together.
Now the King was left with a wife who could give him nothing. No children for his kingdom. And he was upset. He gave up the chance of having seven sons for the beauty of a women who could give him nothing because she was young.
Authors Note:
This story is part of the Bengali Folktales unit. Story source: Folk-Tales of Bengal by the Rev. Lal Behari Day, with illustrations by Warwick Goble (1912)
The Boy Whom Seven Mothers Suckled
In the original story "The Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled" the story started with a king who had 7 queens. However, he sees this one woman who he absolutely adores, and makes her his queen. He was impressed with her beauty and had to have her, but she was secretly a man eater. She slowly turned the King on his other wives and ate all of his company. The 7 women all gave birth and ate their children expect for the 7th woman who delivered her baby boy. She decided to keep him, and all 7 women nursed him. He grew strong and the queens were proud. In fact, the boy found a way to outsmart the man eater, and exposed her true self. He proved that she was the one responsible for all the kings people vanishing. With this occurring, the King brought back his 7 queens and they all lived happily. In my retelling of the story, I decided to keep the 7 queens and the one beautiful woman who the King couldn't resist. However, I changed the story by making the 7 queens bore sons that would have been potential heirs to the King, but the younger queen sent them away. And the younger queen was unable to have any children at all, and the king was left with nothing by becoming so greedy in youth and looks.
