Yuki-onna
Yuki-onna or Yuki Onna ( Japanese 雪女 , German "snow woman (s)") is a fictional being of Japanese popular belief and is counted to the group of Yōkai .
description
Japanese popular belief describes the Yuki-onna as a petite, tall woman or as a petite girl. She wears knee-length, snow-white (more rarely pitch-black) hair and an equally white, elegant kimono . Its nature is described ambiguously: it should warn of upcoming snowstorms, but sometimes also lure stray mountain hikers into the snowstorm, where the victims then freeze miserably. She is also said to warn young children not to play outside alone at night. If a child does this anyway, it will be kidnapped by the snow woman.
Lore
An early legend about the snow woman comes from the work Sōgi Shokoku Monogatari ( 宗 祇 諸国 物語 ; to German "Wonderful stories from the country") around 1690, Edo period . The author reports on an encounter with the snow woman on the edge of a bamboo grove . He describes her as around twenty years old with such pale skin that the lady seemed almost transparent . Your body measurements should be 10 jō (approx. 3.30 m).
Another Yuki-onna story comes from the Oguni region in Yamagata Prefecture . According to the local anecdote , the snow woman was once a moon princess who was terribly bored and wanted to know how things were on earth. So one winter she let herself be carried down to earth by the snowflakes - and got stuck. She had forgotten to plan and prepare a return opportunity.
A third legend tells of a zealous servant named Minokichi and his master, who get caught in a snowstorm and seek shelter in a mountain hut. While they sleep, the snow woman appears and kills the master with her ice-cold breath. She threatens the servant with death if he tells anyone about the incident. Then she disappears. The following winter, the servant meets an incredibly beautiful young woman named Yūki in his home village . They both get married and she gives birth to ten beautiful children with unusually light skin. One evening Minokichi tells his wife that she reminds him of the snow woman he met years ago. Yūki then gets angry, transforms into the snow woman and accuses him of breaking his promise. She only let him live because of the children, but if something should happen to them, he would regret it bitterly. Then the Yuki-onna disappears.
Yuki-onna in modern subculture
The snow woman is one of the themes in the 1964 film Kwaidan - Ghost stories by director Masaki Kobayashi . The film is based on the novel Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn from 1904. It also appears in manga and anime , for example in Rosario + Vampire or Secret Service . It also exists in the trading card game Yu-Gi-Oh! than the "Ghost Trick Yuki-Onna" card.
Individual evidence
- ^ Theresa Bane: Encyclopedia of Demons in World Religions and Cultures . McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina 2012, ISBN 978-0-7864-8894-0 , pp. 334 (English, full text in Google Book Search).
literature
- Carol Mack: A Field Guide to Demons, Vampires, Fallen Angels - And Other Subversive Spirits . Skyhorse Publications, New York 2011, ISBN 9781611451009
- Michaela Haustein: Mythologies of the World: Japan, Ainu, Korea . ePubli, Berlin 2011, ISBN 3844214070
- Lafcadio Hearn (Author), Oscar Lewis (Ed.): Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan . Dover Publications, New York 2006 (reprint), ISBN 0486450945
- Bartłomiej Paszylk: The Pleasure and Pain of Cult Horror Films: An Historical Survey . McFarland, Jefferson, NC 2009, ISBN 0786436956 .
Web links
- Yuki-onna at the Obakemono Project (English)