Three Tales of Children Born from Plants

Folktale	Country	Mode of Child's Delivery
Timun Mas	Indonesia	Cucumber
Meng Jiang Nu	China	Gourd
Kaguya Hime	Japan	Bamboo Stalk

In one version of Timun Mas (Golden Cucumber), a giant gives a childless farming couple some magic cucumber seeds. In another version, it was a childless widow who accepted the giant's offer of help. The farmer(s) carefully cultivate the plants, which yielded a large cucumber. On cutting the vegetable open, the prospective parent(s) was/were delighted to find a baby girl inside. But the giant's help came with strings attached...

In the tale of Meng Jiang Nu (Woman/Daughter of Meng Jiang), the Meng family cultivated a bottle gourd plant that grew over the fence into the property of their neighbors, the Jiang family. When the vine bore fruit, the two families decided to split the gourd. Upon finding a baby girl inside the gourd, the Mengs and the Jiangs, both childless old couples, started a child custody dispute. Mediating neighbors brokered a shared parenting arrangement, and the girl took the names of both families. This child would grow up to be the woman noted for her legendary act of civil disobedience against the emperor who worked her husband and countless other conscripted laborers to death on the Great Wall. A temple dedicated to her still exists in northeastern China.¹

In The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari), also known as Princess Kaguya (Kaguya Hime), an elderly bamboo cutter cut open an unusual shining stalk of bamboo and found a baby girl inside. He and his childless wife raised the child as their daughter, naming her Nayotake-no-Kaguya-hime (princess of flexible bamboos scattering light). The bamboo cutter's daughter grew into a luminous beauty who turned down proposals from 5 princely suitors and then the emperor himself, telling the Japanese ruler that she did not belong to his country. Eventually, she reveals her otherworldly origins to her parents...

Why Momotaro is not included: The present version of Momotaro (Peach First Son), in which his parents found him inside a peach, dates back to the 19th century.² In an earlier version, recorded in the 18th century, the protagonist was not found inside a peach, but conceived by his parents in the common fashion. The removal of human procreation from the narrative has been attributed to the influence of Western culture.²

Notes

1. Lady Meng Jiang on Wikipedia
2. Momotaro on Wikipedia