Long ago, in Katano in Kawachi, there lived a man called Sanetaka, Governor of Bitchu. The couple had no children, so they prayed to the Kannon of Hase, and were granted a beautiful daughter.
When the girl was thirteen, her mother fell gravely ill. Before she died, the mother set a small box on the girl's head and covered it with a large bowl. She did this following an oracle from the Kannon of Hase. After the mother died, the bowl could not be removed from the girl's head however they tried.
Before long the father took a second wife. The stepmother called the girl in her bowl a "monster," tormented her, and spoke ill of her to the father. In the end the father too drove her out of the house.
With nowhere to go, the girl threw herself into a river in her grief. But the bowl on her head floated, and she could not sink. Pulled out onto the bank, she was hired as a servant to stoke the bath fire at the mansion of the Yamakage Third-Rank Captain.
The captain's fourth son, a counselor, happened to be drawn to the beauty of the bowl girl's hands and feet and to her gentle heart, and they promised to marry. But the captain's wife and the older brothers' wives objected, "We cannot accept a servant girl wearing a bowl as a bride," and arranged a "bride contest" with the brothers' wives to shame the girl and drive her out.
On the night before the contest, the girl and the counselor resolved to leave the mansion. Just then the bowl on her head suddenly fell off. Out of the bowl came gold, silver and a great many treasures. And the face that appeared was dazzlingly beautiful.
On the day of the contest, the girl, beautifully dressed, surpassed everyone in looks and in poetry and the koto. Everyone marveled, and the captain accepted her as his son's bride.
Later, when she went to worship at the Kannon of Hase, she met again her father, who had fallen on hard times and was traveling as a pilgrim, and they lived happily together. All this was the blessing of the Kannon of Hase.