In the district of Tamura, in the province of Mutsu, lived a falconer and hunter named Sonjo. One day he went hunting and caught nothing, but on the way home, by a marsh called Akanuma, he saw a pair of oshidori, mandarin ducks, swimming side by side. To kill oshidori was thought to be wrong, but Sonjo was hungry; he shot an arrow, killed the drake, took it home and cooked it.
That night Sonjo had a sad dream. A beautiful woman came into his room, stood by his pillow and began to weep bitterly. Her weeping was so pitiful that Sonjo's heart nearly broke to hear it. She cried, "Why did you kill him? What wrong had he done? We were so happy together at Akanuma. You have killed me too. Without my husband I cannot live. I came only to tell you this."
Then, weeping, she recited a poem:
Hi kurureba / sasoishi mono o / Akanuma no / makomo-gakure no / hitori-ne zo uki
(When dusk came, we always called each other home; now to sleep alone in the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma, ah, the misery)
"You do not understand. But if you come to Akanuma tomorrow, you will," she said, and went away, weeping bitterly again.
When Sonjo woke the next morning, the dream remained so vivid in his mind that he went to Akanuma. When he reached the bank, he saw the female oshidori swimming alone. She did not flee at the sight of him but swam straight toward him, gazing steadily at him. Then, suddenly, she tore open her own body with her beak and died before the hunter's eyes.
Sonjo shaved his head and became a priest.
Akanuma is a place name handed down in the Tamura area of Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, and the story is an old tale that goes back to the Kamakura-period collection Kokon Chomonju. In a very short story, Hearn vividly conveys the weight of a living creature's life and the depth of love between a mated pair.