Page:Kojiki by Chamberlain.djvu/183

] So this is the origin of the modern proverb which speaks of ‘the pheasant as sole messenger.’ So the sound of the wailings of the Heavenly-Young-Prince’s wife Princess Under-Shining, re-echoing in the wind, reached Heaven. So the Heavenly-Young-Prince’s father, the Deity Heaven’s-Earth-Spirit, and his wife and children who were in heaven, hearing it, came down with cries and lamentations, and at once built a mounringmourning [sic]-house there, and made the wild goose of the river the head-hanging bearer, the heron the broom-bearer, the kingfisher the person of the august food, the sparrow the pounding-woman, the