Nure onago

 

 

 

              

                                      The Nure Onago

濡女子
ぬれおなご
wet girl // soaked woman .. or  nure hanayome wet bride.

The Nure onago look  like a regular young  woman with wet hair.
 

They are most often encountered on roads near swamps, rivers, and the coasts, or during nights with heavy rain fall.

As the name implies, they are soaked with water from head to toe. Often, nure onago are covered with dead leaves and things stuck to their dripping bodies. They wander arond  soaking wet and dripping;


Travelers along the coasts and rivers of the islands of Shikoku and Kyūshū will occasionally encounter young girls, lost and soaked to the bone. Most people who see them would feel the need to rush over to help the poor girls. 

 

But once a human gets  close enough to a nure onago, she looks up into their eyes and smiles. If the smile is returned, she will follow the helpful stranger everywhere, sticking by him forever.

Although she  doesn't actually  harm the individual, her constant presence is often enough to ruin the rest of a person’s life because the nure onago continually drip water and stink of mildew and swamp water. Not someone you  want following you home or to work.

Ignoring a nure onago and refusing to return her smile is the only way to avoid this yōkai. Unfortunately, by the time her true nature is discovered it's usually too late.

It's a common belief that Nure onago are born from the strong feelings of loss and sadness shared by widows of drowning victims—particular widows of sailors lost at sea. These feelings build up and materialize into a nure onago, whose desire for attention is the amplified desire of heartbroken widows to see their husbands again.

The Nure onago behavior is somewhat similar  to the hari onago, though in a far less violent form.

 

 The two are sometimes grouped together as waraionago, smiling girls. Both are also found on the island of Shikoku, suggesting a possible connection between them. They should not, however, be confused with the similarly named nure onna or iso onna,  two far more dangerous yōkai.