As he held the child, he pulled its head closer to his dagger. Accepting the offered child, he took his short sword and held it between his teeth. One clever warrior got the better of the Yuki Onba though. Either way, the man becomes a feast for the Yuki Onba and her demon child. The Yuki Onba pounds the man on the head in rage, and drives him into the snow like a hammer hitting a nail. If the man refuses to hold the child, the consequences are equally deadly. Unable to move, the Yuki Onba laughs as snow drifts build around him and freezes him to death.
If the man accepts, and holds the child, he is frozen to his spot. The woman will approach the man and beg him to hold her child. It is said on dark and snowy nights, travelers sometimes encounter a poor woman holding tight a child standing alone in the middle of a forest. This story comes from Hirosaki city, in Aomori prefecture. This suggests it is a real child after all. But as you will see from some of the stories, there is evidence that the Yuki Onba cares deeply for the Yukinko. There is some questions as to whether the Yukinko exists at all, or is just a creation by the Yuki Onba as a way to lay her trap. The little baby in this two-yokai combo doesn’t play much of a role-it is just a newborn baby asleep in swaddling clothes. In the snow or in the woods or on the beach, if a mysterious woman in Japan asks you to hold her baby, just say no. I don’t know what it is in Japanese folklore about a woman offering you a baby to hold, but there are few things more terrifying. Even then, no matter what you call her-Yuki Onba or Yuki Onna-she is just a snowy version of Japan’s famous ubume legends (See Two Tales of Ubume). But just as often you will hear the same stories referring to a Yuki Onna. I thought the two were different enough that I decided to break the Yuki Onba stories out as a separate yokai. Like this one-is the Yuko Onba a separate yokai, or just the Yuki Onna by a different name? It is difficult to determine exactly what a Yuki Onna is. Mostly because there are innumerable different versions of her tale, and a multitude of names that she goes by. The Yuki Onna, Japan’s Snow Woman, is one of the most difficult yokai to write about. The baby in this two-person yokai combo is called a Yukinko, and uses the kanji雪 (yuki snow) + 子 (ko child) to make 雪ん子 – Yukinko. In Japanese, the word onba can also mean wet-nurse, but it this case it refers specifically to a woman with a baby still young enough to be breastfeeding. It uses the kanji 雪 (yuki snow) + 乳母 (onba nursing mother.) English doesn’t really have a specific word for mothers with newborns who are still nursing. Yuki Onba’s name is a little awkward to put into English.
But you must harden your heart and walk away from this tragic scene-for if you take the offered baby, you will be frozen to the spot, trapped a fresh meal for the Yuki Onba and her terrible little offspring, the Yukinko. Seeing you, her face lights up with hope and she holds out her baby to you, begging for help. She is dressed in only a thin, white kimono, and desperately clutches her newborn baby to her chest. Walking along a forest path at night in the dead of winter, you come upon a poor young mother. Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Miyagi-ken no Kowai Hanashi, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources
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