The Greatful Crane
taken from The Crane Wife

An old Japanese folktale that depicts an elderly man finding a crane with it's foot snared on a cold winter's day is a popular tale in the Land of the Rising Sun. After the old man saves the crane and heads home for dinner across the snowy fields he finds a younger woman seeker shelter at his home. He shows her many kindnesses and eventually she becomes his wife. One day shes asks to use his loom, but begs that he never watch her work. As her husband would travel to town to sell his goods, he would take the beautiful fabrics made by his wife which fetched quite a bit of money. One day the old man goes to check on his wife as she works the loom and finds the crane inside with most of it's feathers plucked away. After seeing this the crane tells him it can no longer stay and the man mourns the loss of his wife.

Relevance to Urusei Yatsura

Often this story is told with an elderly couple rather than just a single old man.

The story of Oshima, the racoon that Ataru rescues, is based on this old fairytale, but of course, Oshima isn't nearly as helpful as the crane he pretends to be.

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