The Coconut Story

Fiction says that once upon a time there lived a beautiful lass with dark wavy hair and soulful eyes, who fell in love with a youth, a strong-armed, long-limbed, handsome fellow who, however, did not find favor in her father’s eyes. Instead, parental authority ordered that she marry a rich widower, old and ugly.

Obstinately she refused the two old men’s wishes and continued seeing her youthful swain. But one day, while she was in town, the two villains waited for her lover and slew him when he arrived, burying his body in her own front garden. Several days the maiden waited for him to come and call on her, little knowing that he was so close by.

Finally giving up, she vowed to always remain an old maid, and pining and sighing, she filled her time by sweeping and weeding her garden. But to her amazement, one afternoon, as she performed her usual chore, she noted a tree growing where she had planted no seed, a strange tree with large, comb-like leaves.

Under her tender ministrations, the tree grew and grew and soon bore fruit, into the core, great was her surprise when she found that the inside hard shell resembled the face of her dear, departed Ireneo, whom she used to endearingly call Niyong. There were the eyes, there the nose, and there the mouth. The last, her lips to it, a sweet liquid flowed out, giving her fading body strength. Till the day she died, the maiden took care of the tree, which she called Niyog.

From its fruit which she planted sprung new trees, which she cared for as she would have done her two children. When she died, neighbors who had heard of the wonderful plant came and gathered more seeds and thus was the coconut scattered all over the earth.