Shimosya's yamadashi

I often hear the beautifl songs because white-eyes have switched places with bulbuls.

As part of the festival called Onbashira-sai (御柱祭), the event named yamadashi(山出し) lasts for three days from today at Shimosya(下社) of Suwa Taisha Shrine(諏訪大社). Yamadashi of Kamisha shrines have already ended last week.

Eight huge logs for Shimosya shrines are cut down from a mountain, run down the steep slope with shrine parishioners aboard and cross over a river in three days.
The route of Shimosya's yamadashi includes a sharper inclination than that of Kamisha's. So the event has a much higher risk of injury.

while pulling the logs, carriers sing a chant called kiyariuta(木遣り唄) to coordinate their movement. Although Edo-kiyari(江戸木遣り) is a famous kiyariuta, it has a different tune from that of Onbashira-sai.

●Sanjusangendo munagi no yurai(卅三間堂棟由来)
premiered as a bunraku play in 1760, written by Wakatake Fuemi and Nakamura Akei.
In this story, there is a scene of chanting a kiyariuta.
Sanjusangendo (三十三間堂,thirty-three ken hall) is a Buddhist temple in Kyoto. This story is based on the legend of the hall.

The spirit of a willow changed itself into a woman and married a man who had stopped the cutting of the willow. they had a child.
One day The emperor send an envoy to him on the grounds that the emperor was troubled with headaches because his skull in his previous life remained inside a willow, and his headache would go away by building Sanjusangendo using the willow and placing the skull in the hall.
She opposed the cutting of the willow, but its cutting started. She reveald herself and handed the skull to her son. She disappeared from the moment it was cut down.
people tried to move the log, but it didn't budge an inch. Her son pulled a tow rope, and it moved.They dragged the log to Kyoto, chanting kiyariuta.