Once upon a time, there live an honest young man in the countryside of Japan. One day, the man was walking home with a load of wood late in the afternoon on a sunny, early winter day. He liked these days, with snow on the ground but none on the trees-- it was easy to spot the trees and logs that were dry enough to cut and hard enough to make good coals. Even so, his feet were cold and he was happy to be near home. Perhaps the farmers couldn't afford to eat their own rice, but he couldn't remember a charcoal maker spending the night with cold feet.
As he approached the edge of Three-Mile Pond (three miles from town but only 5 minutes from his home, maybe 8 minutes in the snow) he heard a terrific beating sound accompanied by thin wails.
It was a white crane with truly beautiful feathers. The bird was caught in a bit of string that some fool had set out to snare a duck. By morning the crane would have been beaten to death without being of any use to the duck hunter. The man put down his pack, pulled out his knife, and approached the crane with what he considered soothing words. The crane was not soothed and the footing was not good-- after two or three hard wing strikes across his face the man retreated to his pack and got his short saw. A few strokes with that cut through the root around which the snare was looped. In a moment the crane was gone and the man was sitting in the snow with cold feet and cold hands.
The man resumed his work, deeply contented that he had done a good thing.
At nightfall, when the stars began to appear, he returned to his home, put away the wood he had gathered and used the remains of the morning's fire to begin warming his hands and feet and the miso soup which, with some dried daikon, would be his supper. In fact, he was tired from his struggle with the crane, or perhaps from the day's work. Once warmed, he took a short nap. The sky outside was quite dark by the time he was ready to eat. That was when he heard a knock at the door. It continued, quietly but steadily until he opened the door.
To his great surprise, however, he found a beautiful young woman, whom he never seen before standing at the entrance. She greeted him, saying, “Thank you for your day’s hard work”. Startled, he wondered if he was entering the wrong house, but the woman said with a smile, “This is your home and I’m your bride,” “I don’t believe it,” the man shouted. “I’m so poor no woman will ever agree to marry me. Besides, I have only enough rice to feed a single person!” “Don’t worry,” the woman replied. “I have brought rice.” So saying, she took rice out of a small bag and began to fix supper. The man finally consented saying, “How strange that you should force me to marry you! Well, do what you like!” and thus the woman came to live with the poor young man. She crossed to the raised mat area, slipped out of her sandals to step up and, naturally, knelt by the fire to warm her hands. He quickly found a cushion and, although he was not accustomed to plates, he pulled two plates and an extra bowl from the storage room. Ten days earlier, he had carried a large load of charcoal into town to sell, and so he had some vegetables and better pickles he planned to save for the New Year holiday, but his guest seemed happy with the hot miso soup and daikon. In any case, he did not attempt to impress or embarrass her with a feast.
He could not guess her age, except that she was a decade or more younger than himself. And he could see that she was not one to visit a charcoal burner's hut -- in a few minutes he had begun to think of his home as a hut. She spoke so politely that he could not understand everything she said. Certainly when he asked where she had come from the answer was more polite than informative. He did not follow up with questions about her destination. But there were no long silences; as she had journeyed up the river valley she had been impressed, like himself, by the sun on the snow and the beauty of the pines that could be seen clearly and individually far across the valley. And she commiserated with the death of his mother two springs ago-- apparently her own parents had passed away not too much earlier. In fact, it was time for bed before he knew it. This was another embarrassing moment. He spread out his futon for her, and pushed aside her protests while he found something to cover himself with on the other side of the smoldering coals. Then he slept soundly.
Time went by and, oddly enough, the small bag of rice the woman had brought always provided the amount of rice they wanted, enabling the couple to lead a happy life.
One day his wife had a request for him as he prepared to leave for the forest.
"Your mother's loom is in the storage room. May I use it to learn to weave?"
"Certainly. I'll pull it out where there is space to work. There is not much yarn, but I'll buy more when the next load of charcoal is ready."
"No. Let me work in the storage room. I request that you never come in while I am working."
"Why not?"
"It is my request."
"All right-- I won't"
"Never. It is my request."
Thereupon, the woman entered the room, saying, “Please never look in here for seven days”. And for exactly seven days after that, only the sound of a loom was heard from within day in and day out. The man felt as if he were waiting for as long as one or two years, but remembering her request, he did not peep into the workshop. The seven days passed and the woman came out somewhat haggard. Held in her hands was a roll of resplendently beautiful cloth such a he had never hoped to see. “Now,” she said to him, “I have woven a roll of cloth. Please take this to the town market. When he was ready to leave, his wife handed him a roll of cloth, wrapped in strong, coarse paper. She asked him to sell it in town, and to buy more yarn and some rice if there was money enough for that. He bore his load the two miles into town with careful steps, but a light heart. Once in town he unloaded the bales of charcoal, and then sat at the edge of the shop office while the choja counted out some coins. Receiving them, he pulled out the coarse paper bundle.
"My wife is learning to weave. Would this cloth be of use to you?"
The choja raised his eyebrows at the word "wife," and raised them higher when the paper was removed and a little of the cloth was unrolled. The man saw immediately that what he had brought was not the dark blue or grey stuff the people of the town wore, and did not use the small, regular patterns his mother had always woven. It was not bright, but the surface of the cloth had a gleam that was almost aglow, and a pattern of pines in the mist. It could not be used for snow trousers or a light robe for a summer evening, but would have to be made into a robe for a fine lady. He dropped his eyes, and sipped tea with a mixture of disappointment and amazement.
"I don't know where you got this, or what it is worth. It is not cloth for this town, but I'll try to find a buyer. Take this and come back in 10 days."
The choja started to hand him a gold coin, but realized none of the shops would be able to make change, and gave him a bundle of silver instead, amounting to fifty ryo (a large sum of money), and congratulated the man on his marriage.
The man bought yarn and rice as instructed, and also various roots, persimmons and pickles, and even two small fish. He also bought a comb, carved from a light-colored, close-grained wood with a sweet fragrance, for his wife's long black hair. Then he hurried home, light-hearted again, after having spent all of the money.
Each day when he returned from gathering wood, he would unload his burden and stack the wood in the kiln, then open the door and announce his return. The clacking of the loom would stop, and his wife would rush out to welcome him back. After eating, they would sharpen tools and mend cloths, while he told stories of his boyhood and of the forest, and she told fantastic stories of strange things across the sea or in far parts of Japan. Then they would spread out his thin futon and get a night's rest.
On the 10th day the man's kiln was not yet full or ready to burn, so he walked into town unburdened. The choja offered him a sweet cake with his tea, then gave the man three more pieces of gold. He had taken the cloth to the castle and presented it to the lord, and he asked the man to bring another roll in 4 days, if possible.
His wife was weaving, as usual, when he returned. On hearing the choja's request, she said she was only half-way through the second roll. Immediately after cleaning up the evening meal, she retired to the storage room with a light, and he listened to the steady swish and clack of the loom until it was time to retire.
Again the next day, she entered the storage room as soon as the morning meal -- miso soup and dried daikon again -- was completed, and in the evening she asked him to prepare the soup so that she could continue working. He did so, but it was clear that the loom was not moving with its earlier steady rhythm. He insisted that she stay with him after the meal, and he rubbed her shoulders and arms until she fell asleep.
Still, she was up early the next day, and already working the loom but still, when he awoke, he found some hot rice gruel waiting for him.
Several days later he saw his wife, even more frail than after the first weaving. She handed him another bundle of cloth wrapped in coarse paper. He immediately took the finished cloth to the choja, and was again surprised to have been given a much higher price than he expected. The amount he sold the cloth for was enough to ensure their security for years.
The man and his wife lived happily for a long time.
One day, a wealthy samurai that had heard stories of his wife’s wonderful cloth seeks him and requests him to ask his wife to sell him one more cloth for an incredible price of two-thousand ryo. The man, unable to turn down the samurai’s offer asks his wife to weave a third cloth.
For six days his wife works constantly and tirelessly in the storage room. The man does not see his wife at all. On the seventh day, after returning from gathering wood for the fire he noticed that the loom was silent when he entered the house, and there was no reply when he called out that he had returned. Now he was seriously concerned, and hurriedly opened the sliding door to the storage room.
A finished roll of gleaming brocade, more lovely than the first or second with a lively pattern of sparrows in bamboo, lay on the floor. But his wife was nowhere to be seen-- in her place an exhausted, bloody crane lay sprawled across the loom, it had plucked its breast and sides nearly bare of the feathers that gave that now gave the roll of cloth its luster.
The man immediately slid the door shut. As he did, he heard a wail much more mournful than those he heard as he had cut through the root at the side of the pond. A moment later his wife called to him through the door.
"You must never look at me while I am weaving."
"I'm sorry. I was afraid you were hurt."
"Well, my dear husband, you have seen everything. I am sorry too. Now that you have found out what I really am, I can no longer stay here, to my regret.”
"No! Your true form is my wife. I can't let you go."
"I am the crane who was saved by you. To repay your kindness, I have so far served you in the shape of a woman. Please wait outside. Now we must part."
"You can't leave me now!"
"Please wait outside. It is my request."
The man stood outside in the snow, looking out across the valley where the setting sun had reddened the sky. In few minutes he heard the flap of wings behind him and looked back to see the crane rising above the treetops. But a moment later it swooped down slightly and dropped something from its beak to the cleared area in front of the house, not far from where he stood. The man took a few steps, stooped over, and picked up a comb, carved from a light-colored, close-grained wood with a sweet fragrance, that would always remind him of his wife's long black hair.
The kiln was not quite full, but close enough. He started it burning, then went inside to stare at the ash-covered coals, which were waiting to be revived to warm his hands and heat his evening meal.