日本の怪談-Nihon no kaidan (Japanese Ghost Story）

27th February – 如月

Every month on 27th is about Japanese ghost story! This is the second post, it is about 雪女(Yukionna) and お岩さん (Oiwa san), 2 of the sad lady ghosts.

雪女（Yukionna）

It is believed that the spirit of snow changes the appearance as very white skin lady wearing white kimono. This lady is beautiful and if anybody gets close to her, the person will freeze to death.

There are some famous stories about Yukionna, and the most famous one is from the story book written by 小泉八雲 (Mr. Yakumo Koizumi).

2 of the lumberjacks went into the mountain and they encountered heavy rain and winds. They decided to leave there but it was too heavy so they evacuate in the shelter temporary. In the night, the rain changed to snowstorm. Suddenly, one lady wearing white kimono came into the shelter and killed one of the lumberjacks, the older one by covering him with heavy snow. When she turned to the other lumberjack, the younger one, she did not kill him and instead she told him ‘I will save you this time, but if you tell what you see today, I will kill you’.

After a year this incident, the survived lumberjack got married with beautiful lady called お雪さん (Oyuki san). She had very white skin and beautiful looks. They got 10 kids and were having happy life together. One day, while he was looking at her working in the house, he suddenly remember the lady he met in the shelter. Then he started to talk to her about that night.

After hearing that story, Oyuki san looked at him and told ‘That was me. And I told you if you would tell this story I have to kill you!’. Then she continued ‘But now we have 10 kids so I cannot kill you. If there is anything that would make those 10 kids unhappy…….’ she did not finish the sentence and disappeared.

Sad love story between ghost and lumberjack, Yukionna fell in love with him but he broke the promise so she had to disappear…

There are different snow spirit stories in different regions. One is in Akita prefecture:

On the snowy day, there were one little kid and mother walking on the street. Then mother told to the passenger ‘could you hold my baby?’ When the person held this kid, the kid became to very heavy snow and he sank into the snow underneath.

Another story is from Wakayama prefecture, this snow spirit is called 雪ン坊 (Yukinbou):

On the day after snowing, there are small round holes under the trees. this is believed as the footprint from Yukinbou. – This one seems cute but the other 2 gives goosebumps!

お岩さん　（Oiwa san）

This story is very famous and is considered as one of the three most well-known Japanese ghost stories.

It was based from the story called 四谷怪談 (Yotsuya kaidan) written in Genroku era, from 1600s to 1700, the stories were made from the actual incidents happened during that time in Yotsuya, Tokyo. One of the story has the lady character お岩さん (Oiwa san), and she is enshrined in 於岩稲荷田宮神社 (Oiwainaritamiya jinja). Many visitors come here and wish for relationship – marriage and dissolution.

In the old time in Yotsuya, there were a family called Tamiya, and the daughter from this family was Oiwa san. She was forced to get marry with a man called 伊右衛門 (Iemon). He used to be a worrier but left the master house and did not have job, those people were called 浪人 (Rounin). She gradually started liking Iemon, but there were another girl who liked him – the neighbour rich family’s granddaughter お梅 (Oume). Oume’s family tried to convince Iemon to marry Oume, and they even offer heaps money for this engagement. Iemon could not deny that much money and they started the horrible plan to make Oiwa san away from him. Oume’s grandfather asked Iemon to put poison little by little to make the wife’s face collapse. Gradually this poison made her hair fall down, swell face and when Oiwa san saw her face she screamed and suicide herself. From that incident, she came in front of Iemon’s pillow in the night and cursing him saying ‘恨めしや、恨めしや’ (Urameshiya, Urameshiya).

Another sad story who were betrayed by her husband. This Oiwa san story has been used in many Kabuki and movies therefore it is one of the most famous ghost stories in Japan. However, there are scary rumors about Oiwa san’s curse: If you made fun of her, or said her name without respect (not putting ‘san’ after name), she would curse you – Actually when they made movies or kabuki, all the people who got involved in making it were asked to the shrine to pray for her. There were some people who did not go, became sick and died… Even the one person form other country made fun of her and did not go to the shrine got sick! Therefore, this curse might be on going!

Stay tuned for the another Japanese ghost stories on 27th March:)