Today's post is another icy beauty the Tsurara-Onna.
The Tsurara-Onna is an elemental type yokai from Japanese folklore.
The yokai is icicle that turnes into a woman, because of this she is sometimes confused with the Yuki-Onna.(See previous post)
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Description
Tsurara onna are said to be born out of loneliness.
when a lonely man looks at a beautiful icicle hanging from a roof and reflects upon his loneliness, and desire for companionship a tsurara onna may soon appear.
On first glance, a tsurara onna looks just like an ordinary, though very beautiful young woman.
The tsurara onna is an ice / cold based yokai that inhabits the
same cold areas during wintertime as the yuki onna.
But when the winter snow melt away and icicles are no longer hanging from the rooftops,
the tsurara onna will disappear along with the cold weather, until next winter.
There are countless tales of tsurara onna. They are found in every prefecture where snow falls, and in many story's she is very similar or even identical to yuki onna stories.
Common themes in most versions of the story's involve loneliness, love, marriage, betrayal and lose.
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Unlike the yuki onna, the tsurara onna seem's to show a far more warm and caring nature most of the time.
There are many stories involving a tsurara onna that has fallen in love with a man and in some versions even married a him.
However the tsurara onna is a creature of winter and these marriages invariably end in heartbreak when spring rolls around.
The beautiful bride may eventually return for future encounters with her husband or now former husband.
the following winter only to find the man has moved on believing she had abandoned him the year before.
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Tsurara onna look and act like any other women, So much so that it is often very hard to tell them apart from a normal human woman.
One method to distinguish her is her unwillingness to enter a warm bath. (She will melt)
In some stories the new bride refuses to take a bath no matter how much her husband pressures her. Eventually, she gets tired of fighting,
and reluctantly enters the bath.
However just like some tales with the yuki onna once her husband comes to checks on her later, all he finds are a few tiny shards of ice floating in the tub, and his wife is nowhere in sight.
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myth and tales.
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One well know tale comes from the Echigo Province (modern day Niigata Prefecture) tell's of a young man who gazed out his window on a
cold, snowy night. As he sat there, admiring the beautiful winter niht and the glising icicles haning all around him.
That night He wished he could find a wife as beautiful as the icicles hanging from his roof. Suddenly, he heard a knock at his door.
A woman’s voice called out, and she was as beautiful and clear as ice.
“Excuse me! the woman said, I was traveling along this road, but the snowstorm became too strong and I cannot journey any further. Might I lodge at your house for the night?”
The man of natural accepted, and to his delighted the woman’s face was as beautiful as her voice. He worked hard to make sure her stay was enjoyable .
Months had passed and the young woman was still with the man at his home.
Spending so much time with one another the man had now fallen in love with her and she had now forgotten all about her former journey. They were soon married very happy together.
Until one warm spring morning, the young bride left the home for a trip to the market. That night she did not come home, The man waited for her
night after night.
The snows melted, the cherry blossoms bloomed, and soon it was spring. The man searched for his bride asking everyone he met if they had seen her. But Nobody he met could tell him anything.
As the months past by he eventually accepted that she had left him.
he later remarried a young woman from his village.
The following winter, during a snowstorm, as the man was looking out the window at the icicles hanging from his roof. there was a knock on the door, and to his surprise beautiful woman from the previous winter was standing outside of his house. The young man was shocked.
His former bride had returned
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“I searched for you every day! where did you go, why did you leave me, What is the meaning of this? How could you just vanish like that without a word?”
He continued to question her.
The woman replied, “People have different circumstances you know… But we promised to love each other forever. You said that our bond was as
long and as solid as the beautiful icicles hanging from your roof. And yet…... you have remarried.”
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She then left the house with a somber look on her face.
The man started to follow her, when suddenly there was a voice from inside the house.
It was his new wife, asking what was going on.
“It’s nothing. he said, Stay inside.”
When all of the sudden there was thunderous crash followed by a shriek near the front of the house. The new wife ran to the front door to see
what had happened.
Now lying in the front yard, was her husband. dead, pierced through the head by an enormous icicle that had fallen from the roof.
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There's another legend from the Akita Prefecture. with similarities to the above, however the Akita version is not a story about a woman appearing to
a man and later marring him.
In this story one night during a sever snow storm, a woman came knocked on the door of a home belonging to an older couple, asking for shelter from the storm.
The couple kindly allowed her entery, Several days later the snow continued to fall and was too heavy for anyone to go outside, so the woman continued
staying at the house.
The couple tried to be considerate by warming a bath, but the woman did not want to go in at all. However, unable to completely refuse the couple's
insistence the woman hesitantly entered the bath. After some time had passed, The couple became worried, and went to check on their guest. But there was no sign of the woman, only a single icicle hanging from the roof.
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