The Little Sparrow

The Little Sparrow is a female bird who appears in the Japanese folktale of the same name. She is the woodcutter's pet sparrow who lives with him.

Story
An elderly woodcutter and his wife go out enjoying by chopping trees and fishing. One of the trees has a sparrow inside. She is injured and hurt, so the woodcutter starts feeding her rice. The sparrow started eating all the rice left by her owner. The wife gets angry and rude at the bird, because she thought all her food would be wasted by feeding a bird. The wife used her knife to cut off the sparrow's tongue so she won't eat. The bird is sent to flying back to the mountains where she came. The old man kept on looking for his pet bird. Several sparrows form a flock, which means they are very kind to the man. They brought food, and also danced and sang to him. One of the birds in the forest was his pet sparrow and presented her two baskets: one large and small. The man picked a small basket and brought it back home, because it is full of treasures. Later on, the wife marched angrily into the forest and opened the big box. It was full of horrible monsters and snakes inside, which scared her. The wife started tumbling down the mountains, so it is unknown if she survived the fall or not.

Later versions

 * In some versions, the wife doesn't die and apologizes for being rude to the old woodcutter by being mean to his pet sparrow.

Edits

 * In the Nick Jr. version, the wife doesn't cut the sparrow's tongue. Instead, she is scared off by the mean wife. After the wife was scared by horrible elves in the big box, the woman doesn't fall off the mountain. Instead, she ran to the woodcutter's house and apologizes to him to stop being greedy.