Long ago in Japan, two brothers named Ichiro and Niro lost their parents while they were still kids. With no other kinsfolk around to look after them, Ichiro usually went off and idled his time away, leaving his younger brother Niro at home alone. Niro was a nice, gentle boy. No matter what kind of trouble Ichiro got into, Niro still looked up to him as the head of the family.

One day, Ichiro came back from his wanderings. Niro was so happy that he wanted to cook something really delicious for his brother, but he was too poor to buy any good food. The best he could do was to go pick wild taros in the mountains every morning and cook the softest parts for his brother, leaving the stems and the hard parts for himself.

Ichiro had no idea about his brother's secret. "What the devil is Niro doing in the kitchen? Why doesn't he eat with me at the table? I bet he's eating some really good food in there." Day by day, suspicion and resentment consumed Ichiro's heart until he was ready to explode.

One hot summer day, a storm struck the region and destroyed many crops. Niro had difficulty gathering anything edible for his brother. He left home at five in the morning, and he didn't come home until noon. The hungry Ichiro was so enraged that he strangled Niro to death.

After this outrageous act, Ichiro went to the kitchen for the "really good food" he had fancied. All he found there were some leftover taro stems at the bottom of the pot. Now the truth became crystal clear to him. He regretted what he had done, and for the rest of his life he lived in sorrow and repentance. In his next life, he became a bird that always hovered over the place where the taros grew, crying mournfully with a call that sounded like "Niro, Niro, come eat the taros."