The Snow Woman of Mt. Shirouma Far in the north of Nagano lies Mt. Shirouma. It's a rugged, high peak, and it's covered with deep snow throughout the winter. The area around it is a wild place, inhabited by more animals than people--bears, deer, pheasants, and tanuki (Japanese badgers) can be seen among the trees and rocks of the mountain's slopes. Long ago, people living nearby would climb up onto the mountain to hunt these animals. Mosaku and his son Minokichi were two such hunters. One day the two of them had climbed high on the slopes of Mt. Shirouma looking for game, but the hunting was not so good. Mosaku looked to the sky and saw dark clouds gathering. "The snow will hit soon, son; let's head for the mountain hut." Indeed, the snow began to fall even before they made their way to the hut. By the time they had a fire built in the hearth, the ground outside was wearing a thick white blanket. Mosaku was tired from the day's hunting. He told Minokichi to keep the fire burning, wrapped himself in a blanket, and went straight to sleep. The wind howled outside the hut, blowing in through the cracks in the walls. It seemed the storm struggled with Minokichi, not letting the fire warm the little shack. Suddenly, a blast of wind blew the door open. The cabin was filled in no time with a blinding white gale. The fire blew out and the hut went dark; but soon Minokichi saw, as by a pale cold light, a ghostly figure leaning over his father. Its shape shifted: What had been a white mist of snow came to look like a young, pale woman with no face. Minokichi cried out as the woman blew her frosty breath onto his father. She turned to him and spoke: "You have trespassed on my mountain, into my storm. But you are young, and I will spare you. But you must never speak of what you have seen tonight, or I will come for you as well. Promise it!" No sooner had Minokichi nodded his head than the woman seemed to grow to a great size, taking the shape of Mt. Shirouma itself. Minokichi cried out, hid his face, and remembered no more. When he came to, he saw that the hut door was open, the fire was out, and his father was cold and unmoving in the morning light. He called out to his father and tried to warm his face and hands, but Mosaku was lost. Years passed, and Minokichi never spoke of what happened that night. One winter, as he sat in his house on a snowy night, he heard a knock on his door. Opening it, he found a beautiful woman with pale skin. "Good evening. My name is Yuki. I am traveling, but I have been caught in this storm. Might I stay here until it blows over?" Minokichi, knowing how hard it was to be caught in a winter gale, let her in. She would not come near his fire or drink the hot soup he brought to her, which he thought strange, but she was friendly and beautiful. The storm did not end for some days, and by the time it had blown itself out, the two young people were quite in love. Before long they were married. Minokichi and his wife led a happy life together. He worked hard cutting wood and hunting in the woods and mountains; and he spoke proudly to the other villagers of his wife, Yuki, who worked as hard as he did and never complained about the cold of Nagano's winters. Indeed, she seemed to look forward to winter each year. One winter night, as the icy wind blew outside and the children of Minokichi and Yuki slept in their beds, the two of them stayed up listening to the storm and talking. As always, Yuki sat far from the fire. Minokichi looked at her figure as she mended a coat in the corner; it reminded him of something. He spoke: "Seeing you bent over the needlework there reminds me of that figure I saw on the night my father died, in the hut on Mt. Shirouma." As he spoke, the room seemed to feel colder. "There was a woman there without a face, leaning over him, just like you are leaning over now." Yuki turned to look at him, and he saw with fright that her face was becoming smooth and pale. Still he went on. "Then she vanished and turned into a vision of the mountain itself." Now he was terrified, for even as he said this, Yuki's shape changed; she, too, grew large and came to look like the icy peak. The fire blew out. Yuki, whose name itself meant "snow," spoke to Minokichi. "I am that woman--the snow woman of Mt. Shirouma! You promised on that night never to speak of what happened! You have broken your vow, but I cannot take your life, now that you are the father of my children. But I will leave you alone with them, and when they cry for their mother, you will search for me in vain in the snowstorms of Mt. Shirouma." The door blew open, and in a roaring blast of wind, she was gone. Just as she had said, Minokichi would often go out into the winter storms after that, calling her name as the children cried for their mother. But he never found her. To this day, when people look up and see Mt. Shirouma wreathed in snow and clouds, they say that Minokichi is roaming its slopes, calling out for Yuki.

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