At the entrance to the shrine's forest stood the village's communal bathhouse and the youth association's dojo. In the summer, the voices of young men who had finished their kendo practice singing and making noise in the bath could be heard every night across the rice fields to Hon Village.

One night, just past ten o'clock, the voices shouting "Omen!" and "Okote!" suddenly stopped, and the dojo's lights went out, leaving everything silent. Shortly after, a lantern light appeared from deep within the forest and approached the communal bathhouse.

Whispers could be heard from the shadows around the bathhouse, saying, "It's coming, it's coming," "Shh, they can hear us," and "No, it's fine, they're hard of hearing..." The sound of a mosquito being slapped and a sneaky laugh followed, then silence returned.

The person holding the lantern was a man named Motogoro, in his mid-sixties, the village had commissioned to watch over the dojo, bathhouse, and town hall, he lived in an abandoned house deep in the forest. He was unmarried and had brought his idiot daughter, Oyae, to the bath just before closing time.

Upon entering the bathhouse, the old man grabbed a wire hanging from the ceiling and hung a newly purchased 15-centimeter kerosene lamp, lighting it. He then extinguished the lantern and leaned it against the wall, removed his tattered yukata, and applied black ointment to his dogleg-like right leg. He stretched his leg out under the lamp's light and began to massage it.

Next to him, Oyae, who had just turned eighteen, also undressed. She was considered the most beautiful girl in the village and was indeed beautiful. However, her lower abdomen was strangely swollen, creating a bizarre contrast with her father's crooked leg.

"It's true, it's true," "It's swollen, it's swollen," "Let me see," "Whose child could it be?" "How would I know?" "I don't know," "Liar, she's your mistress," "Idiot, damn," "Shh, shh," whispered voices could be heard again around the bathhouse. However, Motogoro, being hard of hearing, didn't seem to notice and silently dipped his crooked right leg into the bath. Oyae, mimicking him, started to put her right leg into the bath but suddenly remembered something and pulled it back, squatting down to urinate in the floor drain where the water was flowing.

Motogoro, looking down at her with his cataract-clouded eyes, made a strange face. He then slowly got out of the bath, grabbed his daughter's neck from behind just as she finished urinating, and pressed down on her swollen belly.

"What is this?" he asked. "It's my belly," she replied, smiling brightly. The sound of giggling could be heard again from various places.

"I know that... But why is your belly swollen like this... What is this..."

"I don't know... I..."

"There's no way you don't know. Since when has your belly been this swollen? I just noticed it tonight..." Motogoro said, turning back to look at the hanging lamp with a stern face.

"I don't know..."

"Even if you say you don't know... Have you ever slept with someone while I was out of the house? How about it?"

"I don't know..." Oyae said, looking up with a smile that was as beautiful and pure as a goddess.

Motogoro was bewildered. He looked around nervously, repeatedly glancing between the new lamp's light and his daughter's swollen belly with a resentful expression.

"I know...," a small laugh echoed from the entrance, "Hehehehe."

Upon hearing the voice, Motogoro's face changed instantly. He stretched his crooked leg and moved quickly to the entrance, naked. At the same time, voices shouting "Waa!" and "Run!" erupted around the bathhouse, accompanied by noisy laughter that gradually faded away. Motogoro, holding an old hatchet for splitting firewood, ran limping after them, but his footsteps were soon swallowed by the darkness of the forest.

The next morning, Motogoro's naked body, still gripping the hatchet, was pulled from the well behind the village shrine. His daughter, Oyae, was found fast asleep on the wooden floor of the abandoned house's kitchen, unaware of the commotion. Even when her father's body was brought home, she seemed too weak to get up. A strange smell surrounded Oyae, so people investigated further and discovered that, perhaps because there was no one to scold her anymore, she had eaten all the leftover cold rice and the daikon and leafy vegetables pickled in rice bran, causing severe diarrhea that left her unable to get up.

Eventually, the police came and interrogated her, revealing the events of the previous night. It was determined that Motogoro's cause of death was an accidental acute concussion, but the father of Oyae's unborn child remained unknown.

At first, everyone suspected that the young men who practiced kendo had raped her. However, the district head, acting like a faultfinder, called each young man in for a strict interrogation, revealing that not only the young men from their village but also those from neighboring villages had come to tease Oyae. It was even discovered that Oyae had been nicknamed "Post Office," leaving the district head so shocked and astonished that he was at a loss for words.

At that time, the district head's eldest son, Komakichi, a medical student, had just returned home. Upon hearing the story, Komakichi felt great sympathy for Oyae. To gain practical experience, he immediately put on his school uniform and visited the abandoned house where Oyae lived, kindly examining her with a new stethoscope. He asked his mother to bring porridge three times a day and bought anti-diarrheal medicine for her. This led to rumors that Komakichi might be the father of Oyae's child. However, Komakichi paid no attention to such rumors and continued to visit Oyae's house daily during his vacation to examine her. Eventually, rumors spread that he had taken several nude photos of her and kept them in his desk drawer. Troubled by these rumors, he fled back to university before his vacation ended. Upon hearing these rumors, the district head became furious and strictly forbade Komakichi's mother from visiting Oyae's house.

A few days later, a notification that "Oyae died during childbirth" simultaneously reached the homes of the village head, the district head, and the police officer. It was a morning when the cicadas' cries from the shrine's forest began to sound like large waves. Everyone who rushed to the abandoned house in the shadow of the forest was shocked to see how much Oyae's appearance had changed. Perhaps because no one had given her food, her once beautiful and well-nourished body had become emaciated, resembling a skeleton, lying on her back. She seemed to have died in agony, having only partially given birth to a dead baby, with one of its legs still outside her. Her nails were clawed into the tattered tatami, and her entire body arched like a bridge and stiffened. The most terrifying sight was her wide-open, white eyes visible through her disheveled hair.

"Who is Oyae's husband?

Could it be an idiot crow or an owl?

They're calling out from the darkness of the shrine's forest,

'Hoo, hoo, hoo, yo--.'"

This lullaby is still sung in the surrounding villages.