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The video is the following: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkfT0NMsGz0>

Towards the beginning, it says:

> むかしむかし ゆきぶかい やまおくに、  
>  しょうじき **ものの**  
>  おじいさんと おばあさんが すんでいました。  
>  ふたりは なかのよい ふうふでしたが、  
>  とても びんぼうでした。

From what I've been told, ものの means although. So I understand the first
sentence as: Although humble, the old man and the old lady lived. It really
doesn't sound very logical to me. Am I missing something?
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question
meaning
Don't quite understand sentence in Japanese folk-tale video
Yes,
[ものの](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%82%82%E3%81%AE%E3%81%AE-646370#E3.83.87.E3.82.B8.E3.82.BF.E3.83.AB.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E6.B3.89)
means "although". However, in this sentence, you are parsing it wrong. It is:

> しょうじきもの の おじいさん...

So it is really [正直者]{しょう・じき・もの}, which means "an honest person" or "a person
of integrity" (正直 means "honest", not "humble").
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answer
Conjunctions typically join two clauses (or at least appear at the end of
one). Do you have a clause on either side of ものの? You do not, so this can't be
the conjunction ものの, and you must be parsing it wrong, as istrasci says.

Instead, you should understand しょうじきもの as a compound word:

  * The head もの means ひと 'person'. 
  * The modifier しょうじき describes what sort of person it is.

So the compound as a whole means
「[しょうじき](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/je2/35639/m0u/%E3%81%97%E3%82%87%E3%81%86%E3%81%98%E3%81%8D/)な
ひと」.

What does の do, then? It's a type of copula; it does what's traditionally
called "apposition". In short, it's saying that the おじいさん and おばあさん **_are_**
しょうじきもの.

The entire noun phrase しょうじきものの おじいさんと おばあさん serves as the subject of the
first sentence. The story introduces these two characters with a brief
description. Note that if you want to come up with a translation that makes
sense, you should use the _entire_ sentence, including the bit at the
beginning you left out (むかしむかし ゆきぶかい やまおくに).
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answer