Myles Wright

ECL 305

Professor Pressman

6 March, 2024

The Crane Wife

The Crane Wife is an ancient Japanese folktale, which tells the story of a marriage between a supernatural, shapeshifting crane and a man. Although there are variations of the story, in most, a man witnesses a white crane shot down from the sky by hunters. When he helps it recover, the crane flies away. The next day, a beautiful woman appears on this doorstep, offering herself to be his wife. Unbeknownst to him, she is the crane he rescued. He tells her he has no money to support them, but the woman vows this will not be an issue, and they marry. However, she makes her husband promise that while she is weaving in the closed room, he must not enter. The crane wife creates beautiful woven fabrics that the husband sells, making them rich, but the husband grows greedy, urging his wife into the closed room to weave more and more. Eventually, his curiosity overcomes him and he opens the door to the closed room only to find the crane at the loom, plucking her own feathers from her body to create the fabrics. Upon seeing how the man has broken his promise, the crane flies away and never returns. 

“The Crane Wife 1 & 2” and “The Crane Wife 3” appear on the album The Crane Wife, debuted in 2006, by the band The Decemberists. The songs retell the Japanese folktale through a three part song. Part 1 of the man helping the injured crane, part 2 of the marriage and discovery, and part 3 of the man’s remorse over his broken promise. Across many countries and cultures we see recurring stories of supernatural or shapeshifting women marrying human men. One of the most popular, the medieval French legend of Melusine, closely resembles the story of The Crane Wife. Why is this narrative so common? What ideas might these stories across lands, seas, and cultures share? Through diction and imagery, “The Crane Wife 1 & 2” and “The Crane Wife 3” reveal the ways in which marriage for a woman is essentially a loss of self. 

Similar to many other countries, in early Japan women had few rights in marriage.The two songs express this struggle for women through the crane wife’s story, but from the perspective of the man. It should be considered that both the original folktale and song are from the perspective of the husband, though the story is titled after her and she is the one to endure suffering. The first line of the song introduces the setting, both literal and figurative, “It was a cold night, And the snow lay ‘round”, he is in the midst of a snowy winter season (The Decemberists). He later states he has neither wealth nor fame; his life seems empty until the appearance of the crane. After the white crane falls from the sky, the chorus repeats “And all the stars were crashing ’round, As I laid eyes on what I’d found” (The Decemberists). Now with the crane in the man’s life, the stars are around him, signifying light, hope, and good fortune. In Japanese culture, the white crane is a symbol of long life, prosperity, and happiness. The crane wife provides all of these before the man is overtaken by greed and curiosity. Upon seeing the crane, he describes it as a “helpless thing” (The Decemberists). In early culture, women were viewed as helpless, incapable creatures. In early Japan, the decision of who they were to marry was left to their families, and after marriage their lives were dictated by the husband. 

The crane appears at the man’s doorstep as a beautiful woman and offers herself to him. The two “were married and bells rang sweet for our wedding” (The Decemberists). The bells ring as a sign of joy in the marriage for the newlyweds. After the discovery, the bells ring again, but signify a different meaning. Though the man is poor, the crane wife vows to make him prosperous. As the man’s wealth grows, so does his greed as he “forced her to weaving, On a cold loom, in a closed room” (The Decemberists). Though the man recognized how “she grew thin” from the weaving, he overlooked her appearance. He knows she is losing herself in her room weaving, but does nothing about it. After his discovery and her departure, the chorus repeats “Sound the keening bell, And see it’s painted red, Soft as fontanel, The feathers in the thread” (The Decemberists). The Oxford English Dictionary defines Keen as “An Irish funeral song accompanied with wailing in lamentation for the dead”. The motif of the bell appears again, only this time not only for the man’s loss of his wife, but for the crane’s loss of self. The crane used her feathers, though bloodied and weakened, to provide for her husband, yet he still broke his promise. The Decemberists use the line “Soft as fontanel”, fontanel being the membranous gaps between the bones of the skull in infants. Fontanel represents the fragility of a woman’s position in a marriage, dangerous and easily damaged. 

In “The Crane Wife 3”, the man is remorseful as he realizes he has taken advantage of his wife and driven her away. He reflects “And under the boughs unbowed, All clothed in a snowy shroud” (The Decemberists). Boughs are the limbs of trees which are often stripped off, similar to the crane wife who has stripped parts of herself. This further reveals how marriage for a woman is a form of self-annihilation. As for “clothed in a snowy shroud”, a shroud is a white cloth or sheet which a corpse is covered in for burial. This line could represent a few things. From the man’s perspective, it could be interpreted as a shroud for the death of their love and marriage, or a shroud for the crane wife as she has lost herself to their marriage. It is important to note that a shroud holds some resemblance to a wedding veil. This shows how the crane wife was doomed from the beginning, her wedding was the beginning of her end. 

Across cultures, women have endured loss of self in the face of marriage. This could be one possible explanation for the recurring supernatural bride across a variety of cultures. These stories are so common because they reflect a shared sense of loss of oneself for women throughout various histories. 

Works Citied:

The Decemberists. “The Crane Wife 1 & 2”, “The Crane Wife 3”. Genius. https://genius.com/The-decemberists-the-crane-wife-1-2-and-3-lyrics