In the Brothers Grimm tale “The Juniper Tree,” a juniper tree grows over the child’s grave.
The story opens with a mother who wishes for a child beneath a juniper tree. She dies after the child is born, and the father later remarries. The new stepmother becomes jealous of the boy because she wants her own daughter to inherit the household. The tale then turns into a dark story involving murder, concealment, and supernatural restoration.
After the boy’s death, the father buries him beneath the juniper tree. A bird emerges from the tree and sings a song that reveals the crime while gathering gifts for people it meets. The bird eventually returns home and restores the boy through a magical transformation.
“The Juniper Tree” is one of the darker items in the Grimm collection. Its tree is not a generic woodland detail: the juniper connects the mother’s opening wish, the burial, and the supernatural bird sequence.