The Golden Starfruit Tree
The Golden Starfruit Tree ( or simply ) is a Vietnamese folktale. It tells the story of a poor farmer who is paid handsomely by a magical bird after letting it feeds on his starfruit tree and his rich older brother who perishes from his own greediness. Story. The most known variant of the story can be summarized as follows: In a certain village, there was a rich man with two sons. After the man died, the sons split his fortune. The greedy older son took most of the fortune, leaving his kind younger brother with just a  starfruit tree. The younger son took care of the tree and it soon became laden with fruit. One day, a magical bird appeared (a phoenix or a raven in different variants) and ate the fruit. When the owner complained, the bird told him "Eating a starfruit, paying back a piece of gold. Making a three-span pouch to carry them". Next day, the bird returned and took the young man to an island full of gold to fill his pouch. Thanks to the gold, the younger son became rich. Seeing his brother's newfound wealth, the older son demanded to  exchange the starfruit tree with his own fortune. The younger son complied, and the older son became a farmer living next to the tree. The magical bird returned and told him the same, but the greedy man instead made a much bigger pouch, collecting much more gold than what the bird could handle. On their returning trip, the bird dropped the man into the sea, where he drowned. Origin and variants. The first variant of the story was collected by scholar Nguyễn Như Ngọc in the first volume of his "Truyện cổ nước Nam" (). In this variant, the phoenix simply  vomits out another starfruit tree, whose flowers are made of silver and fruits made of gold. When the older brother obtains the starfruit tree, no phoenix appears and he is mocked by ravens. Vietnamese folklorist Nguyễn Đổng Chi in his "Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam" () included various Vietnamese and Hmong variants of the story under the title of "A man dies for wealth, a bird dies for food" (人為財死，鳥為食亡), which is a proverb based on a similar Chinese folktale. Adaptions. The Golden Starfruit Tree is one of Vietnamese fairy tales adapted by "Cổ tích Việt Nam" (), a VHS  series directed by Nguyễn Minh Chung based on Nguyễn Đổng Chi's folklore collection. The episode was released in 1993, featuring Hồng Tơ, Tô Kiều Lan, Hoàng Thơi and Kim Anh.