MUKASHIBANASHI 11: THE SNOW BRIDE

To commemorate the springtime equinox for this year, here is another mukashibanashi -- particularly widespread in Kanto (ie eastern Honshu, the Tokyo area), where the snow often reaches a height of three metres and remains on the ground up to half of the year.

Mukashi mukashi, once upon a time long ago, there was a young man who had not yet found any maiden who would like to tie the knot with him, and thus, being an orphan and an only child, as well as friendless, he lived all alone on his own. On a stormy winter night, during a raging blizzard, he heard a knock on the door. And, when he opened, he found a young lady with unusual silver hair, her whole self too lovely to be human, clad in a mourning-white kimono, lying unconscious on the threshold floor. So he carried her indoors, and soon she began to recover, even though her face remained as pale and cold as newly-fallen snow, and her eyes were an icy blue, so piercing that they burned through. And she was so beautiful that he asked Oyuki, for that was her name, for her hand in marriage.
The two of them lived together, as happily as only young newlyweds can live, for all winter long, and she even encouraged him to go more often down to the village and open up and make friends... but when springtime came and the sun began to shine warmly once more, the young wife began to gradually lose her strength. For each day, she grew weaker and weaker, and lost more and more weight, just like a consumptive would.
Her young husband thought that perchance Oyuki was wasting away for want of company, so he invited their mutual friends over to a fête held to celebrate the springtime equinox at their place. In the middle of the soirée, the young host called for his wife into the kitchen. Since there was no reply, he entered to find her. But there was no Oyuki to be found; only a silken wisteria kimono (which he had given her as a gift), soaking wet, in the middle of a large puddle of freshwater by the fireside.


The bride in this tale is obviously a yuki-onna (雪女), ie a Snow Lady: a female ice elemental, commonly portrayed as a femme fatale who cajoles young males and leads them to a frozen grave in cold water or a snowdrift. Then she preys on their body warmth...
They're typically depicted as pale women with long, black or (particularly in modern depictions) icy blue hair that wear mourning-white (for white is the Asian colour of mourning, just as black is here in European cultures), icy white kimonos (however, some traditional depictions also show them being nude). Yuki-onna are the spirits of young women who died of hypothermia.
Whether Yuki-onna simply like cold climates, are cursed to live in cold climates, or literally can't survive outside of cold climates depends on the incarnation. Some incarnations sleep with lone travelers to steal valuable body warmth, others will simply make them get lost during their travels in order to freeze to death, yet others will kill travelers by tricking them into touching them. More benevolent Yuki-onna will either lead the victims to safety and then sleep with them (or just lead them to safety), or simply leave them alone; the more wicked ones will lead them astray to begin with, kill them with the methods described above, or use them. Some evil Yuki-onna have been described as letting their victims go if they are too young and-or too attractive. Such might have been the case of this Oyuki's husband in today's mukashibanashi! (But I personally see this Oyuki as being far more kind-hearted, don't I?)


Mysterious and majestic Shirahime (白姫), the White Princess, CLAMP's yuki-onna, was my introduction to this species of youkai, both in her titular standalone volume Snow Goddess Tales (a triptych of stories tied together by the wintry rural landscape settings and the presence of the titular character) as well as her appearances in other CLAMP series, such as Angelic Layer, where she was revamped as an albino in a shorter kimono and thigh-high boots:
 






A far cry from the CLAMP winter royal, and my favourite yuki-onna in fiction, is the eccentric and socially awkward, adorable Mizore Shirayuki. Like Luna Lovegood, she resonated with me due to similarities in personality, down to the oral fixation (she is never seen without a mint lollipop, to keep herself cool even in the hottest temperatures). In the past, she confessed her love to her kraken swimming teacher, Octo Kotsubo, until he began taking advantage of her, freezing him as a result. With the incident and rumors spreading about her, Mizore made it hard for herself to trust anyone. She eventually regains her sense of trust after Octo returns to kill her, putting Mizore in literal hot water...

• Anime Hair: Not so much now, but when she was first introduced her hair was much more messy and longer, and despite only having her hair like that in her intro eps in the anime, it's still popular with her fans. She doesn't wear her hair like that anymore because to her it was a Important Hair Cut to symbolize the lessening of her burdens (or something along those lines), which was followed by her becoming a member of the leading cast of nakama.
• Arranged Marriage: Is rescued from it by her friends and mother.
• Doppelgänger Spin: Her "ice clone" technique, which allows her to make somewhat-independent clones merely out of the humidity in the air. She's shown to be quite adept, as she can not only make clones of others, but have two acting at the same time.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Notably more in the anime, as it borders to Technicolour Eyes, iridescent like northern lights.
• Logical Weakness: As a yuki-onna, she's vulnerable to fire and heat.
• Loners Are Freaks: Even after joining the group, it was quite a while before she joined the Newspaper Club proper, instead of just hanging around in the club room. And she's definitely an oddball.
• Me's a Crowd: Can create "ice clones". Not only of herself.
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: She gets an entire arc focusing on this.
• Only You Can Repopulate My Race: Yuki-Onna have a limited window of fertility (teens to early-to-mid twenties), which poses a problem. A problem that's exacerbated by her fixations.
• Oral Fixation: Her minty lollipop, which is used to keep herself cool. According to an Omake, it's got a super-chilly frost core. So much so, she provides the Trope Image.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Often appears out of ridiculous hiding places, like trash cans, second story windows, dropped ceilings, the bathtub...

In the usual femme fatale portrayal of the yuki-onna, there are stark similarities to Andersen's sinisterly alluring, abducting, fierce Snow Queen. Such stark similarities that it does not seem to be purely coincidental that the same motifs pop up clustered in the same pattern in both the eastern and western versions...

However, in tales like these where a bachelor marries a yuki-onna and subsequently loses her to higher temperatures, there is much less resonance of Andersen and much more of the Slavic Snegurotchka (Снегурочка), a snow-girl, made as a snowman shaped like a lifesized girl child by a childless couple, and subsequently adopted by her makers as she comes to life; a character who, just like the Snow Queen, is held up as a Christmas icon in Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe. The story of Snegurotchka ends in springtime with the same coda as this mukashibanashi, only that the skazka ends on a more bittersweet, hopeful note: with the parents deciding to make another snow girl, or Snegurotchka, the next winter, and do so as a tradition for each and every winter of their lives (besides, stories like those of Kaguya, Snegurotchka, the Pacific Northwest Sunchild, and Timothy Green, can all be regarded as tales of comfort and reassurance for empty-nesters who miss their estranged children).
The Pokémon Froslass and Glaceon are also based upon the yuki-onna, as is the Yo-Kai Blizzaria.