Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

OSHIDORI

There was a falconer and hunter, named Sonjō, who lived in the district
called Tamura-no-Gō, of the province of Mutsu. One day he went out
hunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a place
called Akanuma, he perceived a pair of _oshidori_[1] (mandarin-ducks),
swimming together in a river that he was about to cross. To kill
_oshidori_ is not good; but Sonjō happened to be very hungry, and he
shot at the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into
the rushes of the further shore, and disappeared. Sonjō took the dead
bird home, and cooked it.

That night he dreamed a dreary dream. It seemed to him that a beautiful
woman came into his room, and stood by his pillow, and began to weep.
So bitterly did she weep that Sonjō felt as if his heart were being
torn out while he listened. And the woman cried to him: “Why,—oh! why
did you kill him?—of what wrong was he guilty?... At Akanuma we were so
happy together,—and you killed him!... What harm did he ever do you? Do
you even know what you have done?—oh! do you know what a cruel, what a
wicked thing you have done?... Me too you have killed,—for I will not
live without my husband!... Only to tell you this I came.”... Then
again she wept aloud,—so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced
into the marrow of the listener’s bones;—and she sobbed out the words
of this poem:—

Hi kururéba
Sasoëshi mono wo—
Akanuma no
Makomo no kuré no
Hitori-né zo uki!

[_“At the coming of twilight I invited him to return with me—! Now to
sleep alone in the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma—ah! what misery
unspeakable!”_][2]

And after having uttered these verses she exclaimed:—“Ah, you do not
know—you cannot know what you have done! But to-morrow, when you go to
Akanuma, you will see,—you will see...” So saying, and weeping very
piteously, she went away.

When Sonjō awoke in the morning, this dream remained so vivid in his
mind that he was greatly troubled. He remembered the words:—“But
to-morrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see,—you will see.” And he
resolved to go there at once, that he might learn whether his dream was
anything more than a dream.

So he went to Akanuma; and there, when he came to the river-bank, he
saw the female _oshidori_ swimming alone. In the same moment the bird
perceived Sonjō; but, instead of trying to escape, she swam straight
towards him, looking at him the while in a strange fixed way. Then,
with her beak, she suddenly tore open her own body, and died before the
hunter’s eyes...

Sonjō shaved his head, and became a priest.