In The Fox Wife, it is a fox that the man helps and who shows up on the man's doorstep to become his bride. It is there she explains she was trying to repay his kindness, and asks him to use the money from selling the cloth to take care of their child before flying away. One day she disappears, and he finds her in a local pond. In this story, the wife weaves without prompting from the husband. In The Bird Wife, it is an injured wild goose the man saves. The wife is not looked in on by the husband like in The Crane Wife instead like in Crane's Return of a Favor the pheasant wife leaves as soon as the favor is returned. In The Copper Pheasant Wife, the wife does not weave cloth but instead provides her husband a plume to feather an arrow shaft the husband is rewarded for. Ippontōchō-zu by Hara Zaichū Related variations He who lives without sacrifices for someone else doesn't deserve to be with a crane. The man says that love exists without sacrifices but he is wrong. She responds that she has been doing it for love, for them. When the man discovers his wife's true identity and the nature of her illness, devastated by the truth he demands her to stop.
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In The Crane Wife story, a man marries a woman who is in fact a crane disguised as a human, To make money the crane wife plucks her own feathers to weave silk brocade which the man sells, but she becomes increasingly ill as she does so. When the crane sees that the man has found out her true identity, she says that she cannot stay there anymore and flies away to never come back. The man's curiosity takes over and he peeks in, realizing that the woman is the crane whom he saved. The wife then goes back into the room, telling him once again not to come in until she is finished. He comes back home and tells her that he sold it for a very good price. She tells the man to go to the markets the next morning and to sell this for a very large price. Seven days have passed by and she finally comes out with a beautiful piece of clothing, but she is very skinny. The next day she tells the man that she is going in a room to make something and that he is not to come in until she is finished.
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Every day, the rice never goes down in the sack, and it always stays full. The man tells her that he is not wealthy enough to support them, but she tells him that she has a bag of rice that will fill their stomachs. That night, a beautiful girl appears at the man's door and tells him that she is his wife.