Today’s yokai is one of the more feared beings of the supernatural family. In wintry days of old, in the snow country regions, there were many frigid demise of lost travelers. And all villagers agreed that yuki-onna are to be blamed for these frozen deaths.
Legends of yuki-onna is notorious in the northern regions of Japan where snowfall are heavier and mountain paths more desolate. As such, she is known by other names such as snow daughter (yuki-musume) and snow sister (yuki-anesan), depending on the province. Interestingly, there are regions calling yuki-onna, yukifuri-baba (snowfall crone) and tsurara-onna (icicle woman), but I believe these are completely different yokai because they behave quite differently.
Cold Portrayal
Yuki-onna is a snow yokai usually in the form of a pale and beautiful young woman wearing a white translucent furisode (振袖). Some legends even say she roams through the white woods in the nude. She lures lone mountain travelers away from the main path and freezes them into ice pops. Other times, she will charm the vagabond off an unseen cliff.
Like the snowy weather, yuki-onna‘s wrath can be cold, frigid and deadly. But there is also her soft compassion, just like a fresh light snowfall. Usually she appears as ghost-like and floats across the snow leaving no snow prints. These traits led some to believe that yuki-onna is a yurei, the spirit of woman who perished in the snow, or left to die there.
Tale of Oyuki
A yuki-onna story made popular by Lafcadio Hearn, where two woodcutters were stuck in a snowstorm and met the ethereal yuki-onna. She froze one with her icy breath but decided not to harm the handsome Minokichi. In return, yuki-onna made him promise to not tell anyone about her or the incident.
Many years later, Minokichi met a beautiful lady, fell in love and got married. The woman named Oyuki was a good wife and bore several children. One night, Minokichi confessed about the yuki-onna incident to Oyuki who declared that she was the same snow woman. She wanted to kill him but changed her mind again, because of their children. Then Oyuki melted away and disappeared, never to be seen again.
Moral of the story is, avoid travelling through the mountainous forest in the dead of winter. And, if you have to, stick to the main well-taken path and avoid taking any detour for any reasons. Unless, of course, you really want to meet a yuki-onna and her kiss of death.
Yokai Details
- name: yuki-onna (you-kee-on-nah)
- kanji: 雪女 (ゆきおんな)
- meaning: snow woman
- aka:
- yuki-musume (雪娘)
- yuki-onago (雪女子)
- yuki-jorō (雪女郎)
- yuki-anesan (雪姐さん)
- abilities:
- cryogenesis — lower temperature of an area
- frost breath — freeze multiple targets into blocks of ice
