A poor but honest man saves an old man who has tumbled from a log bridge, and the little people of the forest reward him with a mortar that produces whatever a person wishes for. With it he becomes the wealthiest person in his village. His greedy brother steals the mortar and sets out in a rowboat for a lonely island, meaning to keep every luxury for himself. Partway there he asks the mortar for salt and cannot work out how to make it stop. The salt piles up until the boat goes under, and the mortar comes to rest on the seabed, where it keeps producing salt. This silent 1935 animated film retells a Japanese folktale, adapted by Aochi Chuuzou and drawn and directed by Murata Yasushi.