The fruit that ends hunger and death is offered as a traveller's mercy. Miao Shan, having died, descended into hell, and been restored to her body beneath a pine-tree, is bidden by Ju Lai Buddha to journey more than three thousand li across the sea to the island monastery of Hsiang Shan. She fears the fatigue of so long a road — and so her guide produces the marvel: "a magic peach, of a kind not to be found in any earthly orchard". Once she has eaten it, he promises, "you will experience neither hunger nor thirst", and "old age and death will have no power over you"; she will live for ever. This is the served witness for the magic peach, drawn from Myths & Legends of China (a compilation of Chinese myth, published 1922).

The scene is quiet almost to plainness. There is no theft from a heavenly garden, no dragon-guarded tree — only a single fruit passed to a weary pilgrim so she can bear her journey. "Miao Shan ate the magic peach", took leave of the Buddha, and set out; a moment later a tiger, sent to spare her feet, carries her to the rocky slopes of P'u T'o Island. The peach is not a prize but a provision.

Stith Thompson (1885–1976), the American folklorist whose motif-index gives this shape its number, records the magic peach as a Chinese motif, and this is the one witness wired to served text on our shelf today; the second authority he names waits unread. One door stays open: the peach grants deathlessness the moment she is about to embark on a saint's road — is the gift the immortality itself, or the strength to finish the walk?