Yuki flung down her sewing. There was a horrible smile on her face as she bent close to her husband and shrieked: "It was I, Yuki-Onna, who came to you then, and silently killed your master! Oh, faithless wretch, you have broken your promise to keep the matter secret, and if it were not for our sleeping children I would kill you now! Remember, if they have aught to complain of at your hands I shall hear, I shall know, and on a night when the snow falls I will kill you!"
Then Yuki-Onna, the Lady of the Snow, changed into a white mist, and, shrieking and shuddering, passed through the smoke-hole, never to return again.
Kyuzaemon's Ghostly Visitor
According to Mr. R. Gordon Smith, in his "Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan," "all those who die by the snow and cold become spirits of snow." That is to say, all those who perish in this way become identified with Yuki-Onna, the Lady of the Snow. The following legend is adapted from Mr. Smith's book referred to above.
Kyuzaemon, a poor farmer, had closed the shutters of his humble dwelling and retired to rest. Shortly before midnight he was awakened by loud tapping. Going to the door, he exclaimed: "Who are you? What do you want?"
The strange visitor made no attempt to answer these questions, but persistently begged for food and shelter. The cautious Kyuzaemon refused to allow the visitor to enter, and, having seen that his dwelling was secure, he was about to retire to bed again, when he saw standing beside him a woman in white flowing garments, her hair falling over her shoulders.
"Where did you leave your geta?" demanded the frightened farmer.
The white woman informed him that she was the visitor who had tapped upon his door. "I need no geta," she said, "for I have no feet! I fly over the snow-capped trees, and should have proceeded to the next village, but the wind was blowing strongly against me, and I desired to rest awhile."
The farmer expressed his fear of spirits, whereupon the woman inquired if her host had a butsudan (a family altar). Finding that he had, she bade him open the butsudan and light a lamp. When this was done the woman prayed before the ancestral tablets, not forgetting to add a prayer for the still much-agitated Kyuzaemon.