A woman who had been married many years and had not been blessed with a child
prayed at Inari’s shrine. At the conclusion of her supplication the stone foxes wagged
their tails, and snow began to fall. She regarded these phenomena as favorable omens.
When the woman reached her home a beggar accosted her, and begged for something to
eat. The woman good-naturedly gave this wayfarer some red bean rice, the only food she
had in the house, and presented it to him in a dish.
The next day her husband discovered this dish lying in front of the shrine where she had
prayed. The beggar was none other than Inari himself, and the woman’s generosity was
rewarded in due season by the birth of a child.
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