SOME JAPAN FOLK-TALES.
THE BEWITCHED TEA-KETTLE.
LONG time ago the priest of a Buddhist Temple at Tatebayashi, in the province of Pekin, found an old iron boiler amongst a lot of lumber, one of the kind of teakettles formerly used on great occasions. It looked as if it had been ill-used, it was so old and battered. But the priest was a thrifty man, and a lover of old-fashioned things; so he was looking to see what he could make use of amongst the lumber that his predecessor had left behind him. He cleaned the old kettle, and, filling it with water, set it on the fire to boil. To his great amazement it seemed to move, and the head, tail, and four legs of a badger seemed to grow out of it, before he could say the ever-ready prayer of his sect. It then jumped from the fire and tried to escape; but the priest calling to the neophyte to come and aid him, they beat the badger down with brooms and caught it, and put it into a box. Now there was a dealer in old metal in the village who was known to the priest, and the neophyte was sent to bring him to the temple, but nothing was to be said about the tricks of the pot. When the box was opened to show the dealer, it seemed to be the same old rusty, dirty thing it was before the priest cleaned it, so the dealer would not give more than about ten cents for it. The priest, however, after some attempts to obtain more for such a heavy kettle, closed the bargain, glad to be rid of it.
The dealer found it heavier to carry than he at first thought, but he managed to get it home. The same night he was awoke from his sound sleep by noises that seemed to come from the corner where he had placed the tea-kettle, but they ceased when he sat up to watch.
