myth for adzuki bean

A potter came to her home with hands caked in red mud. She had been working her whole life, and yet she never felt like she was finished with her earthen pots. There was never a time when she felt satisfied. In this way she was cursed.

Though she did not know the depth of her fate until she returned home one night when the sun was stark as a golden plate in the pink heavens. There was a fire in the town below and the smoke painted the trees with a haze of pink. Her eyes watered.

As she approached she saw the door to her cabin open and from the pit within a wolf walked out. The woman had heard of animal guests before but she never thought would come to her house. She knew that she must make it beans so that it would be inclined to leave. So she prepared a bean stew and gave it to the wolf who ate it so quickly she did not once see it chewing the food. The next day the wolf was gone but a badger was there, so she made beans for the badger. The following day a cat appeared, and the day after that a marten. Each animal ate as if it had never eaten before, and once it ate, it left. And she was beginning to run low on beans to feed herself.

After fourteen nights passed the wolf returned to her door. A storm was brewing on the horizon. All of her clay bowls were empty. so she rolled up clay into balls and added what little pepper she had left to feed the wolf and as she brought the meager portion out to the wolf, but as she walked she tripped and the bowl and clay beans fell to the ground and when they did they began to grow into small plants. These were red beans, and they had never been seen before. From then on she was the mother of the red bean plant and fed all who came to her door from earthen pots. The wolf she did not see again. But she knew he was there, in the shadows. To this day she waits for the wolf to come back so that she can feed it the meal she could not when she had nothing.