Yuki-onna is a Japanese yokai known as the “snow woman”. She appears in the snow, is tall, and has white skin. She is both beautiful and deadly, freezing her victims with a touch or breath. In some stories, she lures victims with a child and is sometimes a succubus. In Lafcadio Hearn’s version, a woodcutter meets Yuki-onna and promises not to reveal her, but later tells his wife, who is actually Yuki-onna. She spares him for their children but leaves, warning him not to reveal her secret again.
Yuki-onna is a legendary Japanese spirit or yokai. In the Western world, she is best known from Lafcadio Hearn’s version of the story in his book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903). A 1965 film based on Hearn’s stories, also titled Kwaidan, features the Yuki-onna.
Yuki-onna, whose name means “snow woman”, can be considered a personification of winter. She always appears in the snow and her skin is white. She is very tall and naked or dressed entirely in white, sometimes with bloodstains on her clothes or feet. Like a winter storm, she is both serenely beautiful and ruthless killer. She freezes her victims with a touch or breath.
At times, Yuki-onna only kills those who wander in a snowstorm, and at other times she is quite aggressive, blowing the doors off her victims’ houses. Some tales tell of Yuki-onna carrying a child to lure victims, who are frozen to death when they attempt to rescue him. In such stories, she is often said to be the ghost of a pregnant woman who died in the snow. Some parents use Yuki-onna as a boogeyman figure, to threaten their children into behaving. In other stories, Yuki-onna is similar to the Western idea of a succubus, a female demon who seduces men and drains them of life energy through sex or a kiss.
In the legend told by Lafcadio Hearn, a woodcutter and his apprentice meet Yuki-onna in a blizzard. He takes pity on the boy and allows him to live, but makes him promise that he will never tell anyone about her. Later, when the boy is older, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful pale girl named O-Yuki, or “Snow”. They get married and have ten children, and one day the man tells his wife about his meeting with Yuki-onna. Of course, O-Yuki is Yuki-onna, and she’s furious at her husband for breaking her promise. She spares him again for the sake of the children, but she leaves for good, assuring him that he won’t be so lucky if he dares to reveal the secret again.
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