Yuki Ona by Lefkadio Hearne, in a village of Musashi Province. They lived
two woodcutters, Mosaku and Minokichi. At the time of which I am speaking,
Mosaku was an old man, and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a
lad of eighteen years. Every day they went together to a forest situated about
five miles from their village. On the way to that forest, there is
a wide river to cross, and there is a ferry boat. Several times
a bridge was built where the ferry is, but the bridge was each time
carried away by a flood. No common bridge can resist the current there when
the river rises. Mosaku and Minokichi were on their way home one very cold
evening when a great snow storm overtook them. They reached the ferry and they
found that the boatman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other side
of the river. It was no day for swimming, and the woodcutters took
shelter in the ferryman's hut, thinking themselves lucky to find any shelter at all.
There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which to
make a fire. It was only a two matte hut with a single door
but no window. Mosaku and Minokichee fastened the door and lay down to rest,
with their straw raincoats over them. At first, they did not feel
very cold, and they thought that the storm would soon be over. The
old man almost immediately fell asleep, but the boy, Minokichee, lay awake
a long time, listening to the awful wind and the continual slashing of the
snow against the door. The river was roaring, and the hut swayed and
creaked like a junk at sea. There was a terrible storm, and the
air was every moment becoming colder, and Minokichi shivered under his raincoat. But
at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep. He
was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The hut of the
door had been forced open, and by the snow light Yuki Akari he saw
a woman in the room, a woman all in white. She was bending
above Mosaku and blowing her breath upon him, and her breath was like a
bright white smoke. Almost in the same moment, she turned to Minokichi and
stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could
not utter any sound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and
lower, until her face almost touched him, and he saw that she was
very beautiful, though her eyes made him afraid. For a little while she
continued to look at him. Then she smiled, and she whispered. I
intended to treat you like the other man, but I cannot help feeling some
pity for you because you are so young. You are a pretty boy,
Minokichi, and I will not hurt you now. But if you ever tell
anybody, even your own mother, about what you have seen this night,
I shall know it, and then I will kill you. Remember what I
say. With these words, She turned from him and passed through the doorway.
Then he found himself able to move, and he sprang up and looked
out, But the woman was nowhere to be seen, and the snow was
driving furiously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door and secured it by fixing
several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had blown it
open. He thought that he might have been only dreaming and might have mistaken
the gleam of the snow light in the doorway for the figure of a white
woman, but he could not be sure. He called to Mosaku and was
frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his hand in
the dark and touched Mosaku's face and found that it was ice. Mosaku was
stark dead. By dawn, the storm was over, and when the ferryman
returned to his station a little after sunrise, he found Minokichi lying senseless beside
the frozen body of Mosaku. Minokichi was promptly cared for and soon came to
himself, but he remained a long time ill from the effects of the cold
of that terrible night. He had been greatly frightened also by the old man's
death, but he said nothing about the vision of the woman in white.
As soon as he got well again, he returned to his calling, going
alone every morning to the forest and coming back at nightfall with his bundles of
wood, which his mother helped him to sell. One evening in the winter
of the following year, as he was on his way home, he overtook
a girl who happened to be traveling by the same road. She was a
tall, slim girl, very good looking, and she answered Minokichi's greeting in
a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of a songbird. Then
he walked beside her and they began to talk. The girl said that her
name was O Yuki, that she had lately lost both of her parents,
and that she was going to Yedo, where she happened to have some poor
relations who might help her to find a situation as a servant. Minokichi soon
felt charmed by this strange girl, and the more that he looked at her,
the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet
betrothed, and she answered laughingly that she was free. Then, in her
turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was married or pledged to marry, and
he told her that although he had only a widowed mother to support, the
question of an honorable daughter in law had not yet been considered, as he
was very young. After these confidences, they walked on for a long time
without speaking. But as the proverb declares, kiga reba memokuchi hodo ni mono
wo i u, when the wish is there, the eyes can say as
much as the mouth. By the time they reached the village, they had
become very much pleased with each other, and then Minukichi asked Oyuki to rest
awhile at his house. After some shy hesitation, she went there with him,
and his mother made her welcome and prepared a warm meal for her.
Oyuki behaved so nicely that Minukichi's mother took a sudden fancy to her and persuaded
her to delay her journey to Yedo. And the natural end of the matter
was that Yuki never went to Yodo at all. She remained in the house
as an honorable daughter in law. Oyuki proved a very good daughter in law.
When Minukichi's mother came to die some five years later, her last words
were words of affection and praise for the wife of her son. And Oyouki
bore Minokichi ten children, boys and girls, handsome children all of them,
and very fair of skin. The country folk thought Oyuki a wonderful person by
nature, different from themselves. Most of the peasant women ate, but Oyuki,
even after having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and
fresh as on the day when she had first come to the village. One
night, after the children had gone to sleep, Oyuki was sewing by the
light of a paper lamp and Minokichi, watching her, said, to see
you sewing there with the light on your face makes me think of a strange
thing that happened when I was a lad of eighteen. I then saw somebody
as beautiful and white as you are now. Indeed, she was very like
you. Without lifting her eyes from her work, Oyuki responded, tell me
about her. Where did you see her? Then? Minokichi told her about
the terrible night in the ferryman's hut, and about the white woman that had
stooped above him, smiling and whispering, and about the silent death of old
Mosaku. And he said, asleep or awake, that was the only time
that I saw a bee being as beautiful as you. Of course, she
was not a human being, and I was afraid of her, very much
afraid. But she was so white. Indeed, I have never been sure
whether it was a dream that I saw or the woman of the snow.
O Yuki flung down her sewing and arose and bowed above Minokichi where he sat,
and shrieked into his face. It was I, I I Yuki,
it was. And I told you then that I would kill you if you
ever said one word about it. But for those children asleep there. I
would kill you this moment, and now you had better take very, very
good care of them, for if ever they have reason to complain of you,
I will treat you as you deserve. Even as she screamed, her
voice became thin, like a crying of wind. Then she melted into a
bright white mist that spired to the roof beams, and shut it away through
the smoke hole. Never again was she seen. And of yuki Ye honor