Contest Inspiration: Yuki-Onna (The Mountain Snow-Woman)

Yuki-onna is a a spirit found in Japanese mythology and literature.

She appears as a beautiful, iridescently pale woman during snowy nights during snowy nights. Her breath is like frost... She sometimes wears a white kimono but other legends describe her as nude, with only her face and hair standing out against the snow. Despite her inhuman beauty, her eyes can strike terror into mortals. She floats across the snow, leaving no footprints (in fact, some tales say she has no feet, a common feature for many Japanese ghosts), and she can transform into a cloud of mist or snow.

She can appear to be holding a child/infant - if her victim tries to remove the baby from her to safety, they become frozen in place.


Her association with mists and snow means she is often thought of as the soul of an individual who has perished in the snow. She is a beautiful but ruthless killer, who sucks the life breath from her victims... leaving them as frost coated corpses.

One of the popular stories about the yuki-onna is as follows (thanks to wikipedia!)

"A long time ago, there lived two woodcutters, Minokichi and Mosaku. Minokichi was young and Mosaku was very old.

One winter day, they could not come back home because of a snowstorm. They found a hut in the mountain and decided to sleep there. On this particular evening, Minokichi woke up and found a beautiful lady with white clothes. She breathed on old Mosaku and he was frozen to death.

She then approached Minokichi in order to breathe on him, but then stared at him for a while, and said: "I thought I was going to kill you, the same as that old man, but I will not, because you are young and beautiful. You must not tell anyone about this incident. If you tell anyone about me, I will kill you."

Several years later, Minokichi met a beautiful young lady, named Oyuki (yuki = "snow") and married her. She was a good wife. Minokichi and Oyuki had several children and lived many years happily. Mysteriously, she did not age at all.

One night, after the children were asleep, Minokichi said to Oyuki: "Whenever I see you, I am reminded of a mysterious incident that happened to me. When I was young, I met a beautiful young lady like you. I do not know whether it was dream or she was a Yuki-onna..."

After finishing his story, Oyuki suddenly stood up, and said "That woman you met was me! I told you that I would kill you if you ever told anyone about that incident. However, I can't kill you because of our children. Take care of our children... " Then she melted and disappeared.
After that, no one saw her."

Reminder - Contest closes on Tuesday night - Midnight UK time! Get your entries in!!!