"I've picked up something really useful," Gengoro thought to himself. He took the drum with him when he set out on a journey with one of his friends. They arrived at a certain village, and saw a beautiful girl walking along the street.
Quietly, so the girl couldn't hear him, Gengoro muttered "Nose grow longer," and tapped pon pon pon. Suddenly this young lady, who had been so beautiful until then, had a very long nose. This was terrible.
This girl was the daughter of the richest family in the village. Her father and mother were terribly worried, and wanted to cure the girl's nose. They requested doctors, and summoned Buddhist priests, and went to see Shinto priests. They tried everything, but nothing could be done for that nose.
The wealthy family was in despair. Gengoro's friend went there, disguised as a Shinto priest, and said some prayers. When he finished the prayers, he looked very solemn, and made a suggestion. "This is an unusually difficult ailment," he said. "It cannot be cured by Shinto priests, or Buddhist priests, or doctors. So what would you think of putting up posters that say you will give a lot of money to anyone who can cure your daughter's nose?"
"Nothing else we've tried has done any good," the head of the family thought to himself, and so he had posters put up.
When the time seemed right, Gengoro walked past the wealthy family's house shouting "Nose therapy! Nose therapy!"
The family heard him. They thought, "Who knows what kind of person this is, but let's call him in anyway." And so they shouted, "Nose healer, nose healer!" and invited him in.
When Gengoro went in to see the girl's nose, it was so long it nearly reached the ceiling.
"A nose this long can't be fixed immediately," he said. "But it's nothing I can't take care of if you are patient."
Then he chanted "Nose grow shorter. Nose grow shorter" in a pompous voice, and took his time tapping the drum, pon pon pon. The nose grew a little shorter.
In that way, he shortened it a little bit more every day. It took ten days, but finally the nose was back to its original size. The parents were extremely happy, and gave him a great deal of money in appreciation.
Gengoro and his friend were pleased with themselves. They gave up their journey, went back home, and relaxed and enjoyed themselves.
One day Gengoro was napping in a meadow. The friend, sitting next to him, was fooling around; he tapped the drum and said, "Nose grow long. Nose grow long. Swift and steady, nose grow long."
But he pounded the drum too hard, and the nose grew higher than the hills, higher than the clouds, and finally reached right up to the celestial axis at the top of heaven.
Just at that time, the carpenters at the celestial axis were building a bridge across the great river of heaven. When they saw a strange object come poking up from below, the carpenters thought it was something rare indeed, and they used their carpenter tools to fasten it to a decorative nob on the bridge railing.
In the meantime, Gengoro's friend thought, "That must be as long as a nose can get, I'd better shorten it again." So he said, "Nose get short," and tapped the drum, pon pon pon. However, because the tip of his nose was firmly attached to the bridge at the celestial axis, it couldn't come down as the nose grew shorter, so instead Gengoro's body was pulled upward. Before any could yell, "Hey, what's happening?" Gengoro was hanging on the railing of the bridge over the great river of heaven.
Just then the thunder god came along. He saw Gengoro and said, "Here's a human just at the right time. You can be my assistant." He unfastened Gengoro from the decorative knob, and took him along.
And so Gengoro was made an assistant to the thunder god. Every day he would make rain fall, or spread black clouds across the sky, or sprinkle water, or make fine weather, or blow the clouds around, rumbling and flashing.
One day, however, for some unexplained reason Gengoro's foot slipped from a cloud, and he fell like a stone to the earth below. The place where he fell was a lake in Omi called lake Biwa, and as soon as he hit the water, he turned into a carp. Even today there is said to be a large carp called Gengorobuna in lake Biwa, and that is the carp that used to be Gengoro.