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No.06

Yuki-onna

THE SNOW WOMAN

Yuki-onna
Pixel artArt by @yokaipixel
"Yuki-onna" from Gazu Hyakki Yagyo
For reference: old artToriyama Sekien（1776）
"Yuki-onna" from Gazu Hyakki Yagyo
Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)
Japanese name
雪女（YUKI-ONNA）
Type
Snow spirit
Found in
Blizzard nights, huts on mountain passes
Where the legend lives
  • Tokyo — Lafcadio Hearn's Yuki-onna is said to come from a tale told in western Tama (today's Ome, Tokyo)

◆ The legend

On a blizzard night, a beautiful woman in a white kimono appears — a yokai passed down for generations in Japan's snow country. Anyone she breathes her icy breath upon freezes as if falling asleep.

The most famous telling comes from Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. Yuki-onna spares a young man's life on a snowy night, warning him that if he ever tells anyone what happened, he will die. In time he marries a lovely young woman — until one night he lets slip the story of that blizzard. His wife's face slowly turns white, and... Frightening, yet endlessly sad: a winter-night story that melts away like snow.

◆ Stories about this yokai

Yuki-onna and Hearn's Kwaidan — A Story About a PromiseLafcadio Hearn's "Yuki-onna" in Kwaidan is a ghost story, but it is also a story about a promise. A gentle reading of the tale that made the Snow Woman famous, told through the promise at its heart.