Once upon a time, there was a man named Saburobe at Mangyo in Noto province.
One night, the man went out. When he came back, he saw two wives in his room. He was sure that one of them was a ghost.
Amazingly, there was no difference between their appearance or, manners or the way they talked.
He tried all kinds of tricks and asked them many kinds of questions. Both of them answered everything easily.
Saburobe was perplexed and did not know what to do. At last, Saburobe had a little doubt on one of them. So, he drove her out of the house and let the other stay in the house as his wife.
Soon, he prospered and had two sons. The children grew up.
One day, when they were playing hide and seek at home, they discovered that their mother had a tail.
Now, when the truth was revealed, she could no longer stay in the house. “The truth is that I was a fox,” she said.
She cried and ran outside the house leaving the children behind. After a few days, it was time for the rice grains to form.
The fox-wife walked around Saburobe’s rice field and chanted “Be fruitful, but hide the ears.” This, she did every year. And when the rice controllers came to inspect, they always excused Saburobe’s family from payments because the rice grains at only Saburobe’s house never seemed to fill in well.
But at the time of harvesting, when Saburobe took the rice to his house to thresh, there was always a greater harvest than that of any other farmer who planted rice. As a result, Saburobe became richer and richer.
