The Snow Woman's Curse (A Japanese Folklore)

In a remote mountain village, where winter winds howled like hungry spirits and snow piled high against every door, lived two woodcutters: old Mosaku and his young apprentice, Minokichi. One bitter night, caught in a blizzard, they sought shelter in a deserted hut high in the pass.

As they slept fitfully, a chilling gust blew open the door, and a figure entered. She was tall and slender, her skin as pale as the driven snow, her long black hair cascading around a face of ethereal beauty. Her eyes, however, held a strange, unsettling coldness. She drifted towards Mosaku and breathed upon him. Instantly, the old man’s breath froze, and his life ebbed away.

Then, her gaze turned to Minokichi, who lay paralyzed with terror. She bent over him, her icy breath ghosting over his face. He expected to meet the same frigid end as his master. But then, a strange sorrow flickered in her cold eyes.

“I ought to kill you,” she whispered, her voice like the sigh of winter wind. “But you are young. I will spare you, on one condition: you must never speak to anyone about what you have seen tonight. If you do, I will know, and I will take your life.”

With that, she vanished as silently as she had come, leaving Minokichi alone with the frozen corpse of Mosaku and the lingering chill of her presence.

The next morning, when the storm abated, Minokichi returned to his village, carrying the heavy burden of his secret. Years passed. He eventually married a beautiful and gentle woman named O-Yuki (Snow Woman). She was a wonderful wife, and they had several happy children. Minokichi’s life seemed full, yet the memory of that terrifying night in the mountain hut never truly faded.

One snowy evening, as they sat by the warm hearth, Minokichi found himself gazing at O-Yuki’s exquisite pale skin and long black hair. A wave of nostalgia and a foolish urge to confess washed over him.

“O-Yuki,” he began hesitantly, “once, many years ago, when I was a young man…”

As he recounted the tale of the blizzard and the woman he had seen in the hut, a subtle change came over O-Yuki. Her beauty seemed to sharpen, her eyes grew colder, mirroring the gaze he remembered from that fateful night.

When he finished his story, O-Yuki rose slowly. Her voice was no longer soft and gentle but carried the chilling resonance of the winter wind.

“It was I whom you saw that night,” she said, her gaze piercing him. “And you promised never to speak of it.”

Minokichi stared at her in horror, realizing the truth. The years of warmth and love melted away, replaced by the terrifying reality of his wife’s true nature.

O-Yuki’s form began to waver, becoming translucent like the falling snow outside. “Had it not been for our children,” she said, her voice tinged with a sorrowful coldness, “I would take your life now. But for their sake, I will spare you this time. However,” her voice dropped to a deadly whisper, “if you ever harm them, I will return. Remember this.”

With those final words, O-Yuki dissolved into a flurry of snow, swirling out into the night, leaving Minokichi alone in the silent house with his bewildered and now motherless children, forever haunted by the woman of the snow and the secret he could not keep.