The Magic Kettle
The Magic Kettle
High up in the mountains of Japan there once lived a good old man. He loved his little house and gardens and was very proud of them. He never tired of admiring the beauty of his home and that of the bountiful plants surrounding it.
One day, he was looking across at the mountain when he heard a rumbling in the room behind him. He turned around, and in the corner he saw a rusty old iron kettle. The old man had no idea how the kettle got there, but he picked it up, looked it over carefully, dusted it off, and carried it to the kitchen.
“This was a lucky find,” he thought. “A new kettle costs money, and it's a good thing to have a spare on hand just in case.”
He filled the kettle with water, and put it on the fire. No sooner was the water in the kettle getting warm than a strange thing happened. First, the handle of the kettle changed its shape and became a head, and the spout grew into a tail, while out of the body emerged four paws. In a few minutes, the man found himself watching not a boiling kettle but a kind of badger called a “tanuki”!
The creature jumped out of the fire and bounded about the room 'till the old man cried out in alarm that the animal would damage his beautiful house and gardens. He cried to his neighbor for help, and between them they managed to capture the tanuki and shut him safely in a wooden chest. Then, exhausted, they sat on their mats, trying to decide what to do with this bothersome beast. After some discussion, they decided to sell him, so they sent a neighbor child to bring a tradesman called Jimmu. Jimmu came and agreed to buy the kettle.
When Jimmu arrived home, he went right to bed, for he was exhausted from hauling the heavy kettle. In the middle of the night, he heard a loud noise. When he raised himself to look, he saw that the kettle had become a tanuki, which was chasing its own tail! After that, the happy creature began turning somersaults. Jimmu didn't know what to do about this odd situation, so he decided to sleep on it. When he awoke, however, there was no tanuki — just the kettle.
Jimmu decided to build a booth where people could come see the kettle. People came in crowds, and the kettle was passed from hand to hand. They would examine it all over and even look inside. Then Jimmu would take it back and, setting it on the platform, would command it to become a tanuki. In an instant the kettle transformed into the creature and entertained the crowds. Day after day, the booth was so full, it was hardly possible to enter it. Jimmu became a rich man. Yet, he did not feel happy. He was an honest man and felt he owed some of the money to the good old man who had sold him the kettle. So, one day, he filled the kettle with 100 gold pieces and returned to the old man's home. He told about his travels with the kettle and said, “I have brought it back to you, as I have no right to keep it any longer.”
The man thanked Jimmu and said that few people would have been so honest. The kettle brought them both luck and everything always went very well for them.
