Yama-uba

The word can also be written as 山母, 山姫, or 山女郎, and in the town of Masaeki, Nishimorokata District, Miyazaki Prefecture (now Ebino), a "yamahime" would wash her hair and sing in a lovely voice.

Deep in the mountains of Shizuoka Prefecture, there is a tale that the "yamahime" would appear as a woman around twenty years of age and would have beautiful features, a small sleeve, and black hair, and that when a hunter encounters her and tries to shoot at it with a gun, she would repel the bullet with her hands.

In Hachijō-jima, a "dejji" or "decchi" would perform kamikakushi by making people walk around places that should not exist for an entire night, but if one becomes friendly with her, she would lend you lintel, among other things.

Depending on the text and translator, the Yamauba appears as a monstrous crone, "her unkempt hair long and golden white ... her kimono filthy and tattered",[7] with cannibalistic tendencies.

[8] In one tale a mother traveling to her village is forced to give birth in a mountain hut assisted by a seemingly kind old woman, only to discover, when it is too late, that the stranger is Yamauba, with plans to eat the helpless Kintarō.