Yuki-onna
Yuki-onna originates from folklores of olden times; in the Muromachi period Sōgi Shokoku Monogatari by the renga poet Sōgi, there is a statement on how he saw a yuki-onna when he was staying in Echigo Province (now Niigata Prefecture), indicating that the legends already existed in the Muromachi period.
This woman was reluctant to go into the bath and when she was made to go in anyway, she disappeared, leaving only thin, fragmented, floating icicles (see also tsurara-onna).
"[3] In the Kaminoyama region of Yamagata, a yuki-onna would come visit an old couple on a snowy night to warm herself by the irori.
When late at night the Yuki-onna would again go out on a journey, the old man would attempt to take her hand to stop her, when he noticed that she was chillingly cold.
[4] In the Ina region of Nagano Prefecture, Yuki-onna is called "yukionba", and it is believed that they would appear on a snowy night in the form of a yama-uba.
Similarly, in Yoshida, Ehime Prefecture, on a night when snow is accumulating on the ground, a "yukinba" is said to appear, and people would make sure not to let their children outside.
It is said that this monster would appear at mountain huts and ask for water, but if one grants the request, one would be killed, so one should give hot tea instead.
[8] Old tales about yuki-onna are mostly stories of sorrow, and it is said that these tales started from when people who have lived gloomy lives, such as childless old couples or single men in mountain villages, would hear the sound of a blizzard knocking on their shutter door and fantasize that the thing that they longed for has come.
In a setsuwa of the Oguni region of Yamagata Prefecture, a yuki-jorō (yuki-onna) was originally a princess of the Moon world, and in order to leave a boring lifestyle came down to Earth together with snow but was unable to go back to the Moon and so appears on snowy moonlit nights.
It was supposed that if there were a lot of something, a living thing would come forth from it, giving birth to fish if the water is deep enough and birds if the forest is thick enough.
[9] Among Japan's traditional culture, Yuki-onna can be seen in kōwaka such as the Fushimi Tokiwa (伏見常磐), which can also be checked in modern times.
Old tales and legends like these have been confirmed in Aomori, Yamagata, Iwate, Fukushima, Niigata, Nagano, Wakayama, Ehime, among other places.
[3] Yuki-onna appears on snowy nights as a tall, beautiful woman with long black hair and blue lips.
Her inhumanly pale or even transparent skin makes her blend into the snowy landscape (as famously described in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things).
She often wears a white kimono,[10] but other legends describe her as nude, with only her face and hair standing out against the snow.
[12] Some notable of them are described below: Some legends say the Yuki-onna, being associated with winter and snowstorms, is the spirit of someone who perished in the snow.
Today, however, stories often color her as mere human, emphasizing her ghost-like nature and ephemeral beauty.
[14] In many stories, Yuki-onna appears to travelers trapped in snowstorms and uses her icy breath to leave them as frost-coated corpses.
In these stories, she often invades homes, blowing in the door with a gust of wind to kill residents in their sleep (some legends require her to be invited inside first).
She occasionally takes on a succubus-like manner, preying on weak-willed men to drain or freeze them through sex or a kiss.
In some versions, she chose not to kill him because he told her, which she did not treat as a broken promise (technically, Yuki-Onna herself is not a human and thus did not count).
Several years later, Minokichi met a beautiful young lady, named O-yuki (Yuki = "snow") and married her.
