Long, long ago, the priest of a certain temple bought an old tea kettle.
When the priest tried to boil water in it, a head, a tail, and four legs suddenly sprang from the kettle, and it went racing about the room crying, "Hot! Hot!"
In truth, the tea kettle was a tanuki in disguise.
The startled priest declared the thing uncanny and sold the kettle cheaply to a passing secondhand dealer.
That night the tanuki appeared before the dealer and said, "I am a tanuki. You have been kind to me, and I wish to repay you—let us put on a show together."
The dealer joyfully built a little theater and started a show called "The Tightrope-Walking Bunbuku Tea Kettle."
The kettle-tanuki walked the rope so skillfully that word spread far and wide, crowds came every day, and the dealer became a rich man indeed.
In time, out of gratitude to the tanuki, the dealer offered the kettle up to the temple.
There the kettle was treasured as a precious thing, and the story has been told ever since.
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