The stork wife

in #story6 years ago

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Once upon a time there was an honest man of good character. He saw a stork in the grass one day when he was cutting grass in the hills. It did not try to get up or to fly as his work brought him near to it. When he went up to see he found an arrow in its back. He felt sorry for the stork and took out the arrow. The bird flew away somewhere with a happy look on its face.
In the autumn of that year, a young woman who was a stranger came to the man's house one evening and said, "Please let me stay
here tonight." The man felt sorry for her and let her stay. The next day she did not seem to be going, but stayed on and washed and mended the man's old clothes.
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After two or three days had passed like this the woman said, "I have no special place to go, so please let me stay here." The man
considered how things were, how kind she was, how well she worked, and how unpleasant it was to live alone, and said, "Please stay."
Thus they became man and wife.
New Year was near, but the man was poor and they could not make any preparations for it. His bride did her best to weave a length of cloth and she told her husband to take it to the feudal lord to sell. He took it promptly to the feudal lord, who paid him a lot of money for it. The feudal lord said, "This is beautiful weaving. Bring me
another length of it."
When the man went home and told his wife she thought it over for a while. Then she said, "I am not sure if I can weave another length, but I will try. Please do not look in where I am weaving." She wentinto her room, and presently the husband heard her start to weave.
The husband thought it was strange that she could weave such beautiful cloth and wondered why she forbade him to look until she was finished weaving. He looked at her secretly through a knothole. He was astonished to see a naked stork plucking her few remaining feathers one by one with her beak and weaving them carefully. Then the stork said sadly, "Even though I asked you so earnestly not to
look, why have you done it? I can stay no longer since I have been seen in this form. I am really the stork you rescued and I wanted to repay your kindness in some way. Now there is nothing I can do. I hoped this weaving would repay you, but now that you have seen my form, i must go."
Her husband could not stop her from flying away sadly, naked as she was

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