The Badger Tea-Kettle

About the tale

This tale has a real address: Morinji, a Zen temple in Tatebayashi, founded in 1426, which still shows its famous kettle to visitors in its treasure hall. All over Japan the folk tale tells of a grateful animal that turns into a kettle to help a poor man. A children’s picture book about it appeared in the Edo period, and in 1895 Iwaya Sazanami retold it in his series “Japanese Old Tales”. In most Japanese retellings the hero is a tanuki, a raccoon dog; A. B. Mitford, who retold the story in English in 1871, called it a badger.

A Japanese folk tale set at the Morinji temple, retold from “The Accomplished and Lucky Tea-Kettle” in A. B. Mitford’s “Tales of Old Japan” (1871) and “The Tea-Kettle” in Grace James’s “Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales” (1910).