"I have still thirty _mommé_ of her savings. Perhaps she wants us to
pay that money to the temple, for a Buddhist service on behalf of her
spirit. Tama was always very anxious about her next birth."
As she spoke, the fly fell from the paper window on which it had been
resting. Kyūbei picked it up, and found that it was dead.
*
Thereupon the husband and wife resolved to go to the temple at once,
and to pay the girl's money to the priests. They put the body of the
fly into a little box, and took it along with them.
Jiku Shōnin, the chief priest of the temple, on hearing the story of
the fly, decided that Kyūbei and his wife had acted rightly in the
matter. Then Jiku Shōnin performed a _Ségaki_ service on behalf of the
spirit of Tama; and over the body of the fly were recited the eight
rolls of the sûtra _Myōten_. And the box containing the body of the fly
was buried in the grounds of the temple; and above the place a _sotoba_
was set up, appropriately inscribed.