Once upon a time, poor old man and his wife lived in a certain place.
One cold, snowy day, the old man went to town to sell firewood and he saw something moving in the snow on his way back.
“What is that?”
The old man found a crane that was caught in a trap. The more the crane moved, the more the trap tightened on it, so the old man felt sorry for it.
“Oh, sorry, come on, Now I’ll let you go. Be careful from now on.”
He saved the crane, and it flew away to the mountains.
When he got home and told his wife, “I helped the crane that was trapped. I did a good thing today.” As he said it, there was a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” When his wife opened the door, she saw a beautiful girl standing there.
She said, “I lost my way because of the snow. Could I stay overnight at your place?”
His wife said “It’s especially cold tonight. Now come in.”
The beautiful girl was delighted with the words and she decided to stay there.
From that day on, she began to live in the old man’s house.
One day she said, “Please let me weave. And please don’t peep into the room while I am weaving, never peep.”
“Okay. We’ll never peep. Weave nice fabric.”
When she shuts herself up in the room, she starts to weave all day and she doesn’t come out even at night.
She continued to weave day in and day out. The old man and his wife were listening to the sound of the weaving machine.
On that night of the third day, when the sound stopped, she came out with a roll of fabric. It was a really beautiful fabric that they had never seen before.
“This is a crane fabric. Take it to the town and sell it. You will surely get a lot of money.” She said.
Next day. The old man went out to town and walked around while saying loudly, “Would you like to have a beautiful crane fabric?” And the fabric sold at a very high price. He went home happily.
The next day, the beautiful girl started weaving again.
When three days passed, the wife said to the old man, “Why can she weave such a beautiful fabric? Let’s have a peep into the room.”
They peeped into the room, forgetting what she told.
Then, lo and behold! A crane was pulling out its own feathers to weave.
The wife whispered to the old man “Hey, the crane is weaving.”
On that night, she came out of the room with a beautiful fabric.
“I’ll never forget gratitude for you. I’m a crane that was saved from a trap by you.
I had come here to return the favor, but I couldn’t stay anymore because you found out my identity. Thank you for everything.”
When she said so, she opened her arms and changed herself into a crane. She soars into the sky and flying over the house toward the mountains.
