Imagine this: you find yourself lost in the woods, high up in the mountains of Japan. Snow is falling in a thick curtain, and out of the corner of your eyes you see a woman dressed in white slipping amongst the trees. You blink and she is there, sucking your life force from you as you freeze up, turning solid as ice. This is the fearsome creature known as the Yuki Onna.
Yuki Onna are Japanese yokai — a category of supernatural beings in Japanese folklore which includes demons, monsters, and creatures. Their legends are more prevalent amongst the people living in the Japanese Alps where they can await — and eventually hunt — unsuspecting travelers who find themselves lost during snowstorms.
The Yuki Onna are described as being beautiful, with long, black hair and violet eyes. Their flesh is pale, their kimonos white to blend in with the snow. Their powers include being able to freeze a human by sucking out their souls with their icy breath and entering homes, flash-freezing entire families while they sleep. However, not every interaction with the Yuki Onna ends with their human prey frozen. In fact, some lore suggests that they will fall in love and marry. However, the Yuki Onna are immortal, and when their husbands realize she does not age their marriages fall apart.
So be wary, travelers. If you happen to find yourself lost on a snowy mountain road, keep your eyes out for a woman of great beauty dressed all in white. For she may be a Yuki Onna, awaiting her latest prey.
For more reading on the Yuki Onna (sources):
http://yokai.com/yukionna/
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/heart-cold-ice-japanese-legend-yuki-onna-beautiful-yet-dangerous-snow-woman-007186
Imagine being amazing at something. Now imagine being known for it, for people celebrating your talent, even comparing it to the gods. Can you see it? Can you feel your pride building? Now picture the goddess you are compared to coming for you, and you are going toe-to-toe with her. And you win. Your prize? Eternity transformed into a creature, a punishment earned because you were too proud to say you weren’t better than the goddess herself. This is the story of Arachne and Athena.
This is where the story changes the most, however: the ending. I will tell you all three of the main versions. In one, Arachne beats Athena and, while in a rage, Athena curses Arachne to take the form of a spider. In another, Arachne and Athena wagered their weaving — the loser being unable to touch a spindle or loom ever again. In this version, Athena wins, and Arachne is so distraught that she will no longer be able to weave that Athena, taking pity on the girl, transforms her into a spider so that their bargain may not be broken. The last version of this story is that Athena is beaten, however she is impressed by the girl’s skills. So, she kisses Arachne’s forehead to give
Either way, the story of Arachne is a cautionary tale. Her pride gets her into trouble when she believes herself to be above the gods, and her punishment is one that leaves her cursed for eternity. One thing is for sure: never anger the Greek gods, or you might find yourself challenged by them — and in turn, cursed for all of time!
The theater has been host to much folklore over the years. There is the saying “break a leg” which means “good luck” — though you are never supposed to actually wish someone “good luck.” There are stories of haunted sets due to deaths, of cursed parts — such as the ghost in “the Peony Lantern” which stems from a 1919 performance in which the two actresses playing Otsuyu and her maid fell sick and died within a week of each other. However, there is one play that no one dares utter the name of. One that has supposedly been cursed for centuries. And that play is Macbeth.
When Laurence Olivier played Macbeth, he was almost killed by a heavy weight that mysteriously dropped from backstage, and during his performance they used real swords which, unfortunately, led to one flying into the audience, hitting one of the patrons and causing him to have a heart attack. In 1942, three actors died under unexplained circumstances, and the costume designer took their own life on opening night. The final story we have of this play’s destruction comes to us from 1953 when actor Charlton Heston was in a horrific motorcycle accident during rehearsals, leaving both of his legs badly burned for his performance. The reason? His tights had been mysteriously soaked in kerosene, leaving them highly flammable.
To accompany it’s monstrous appearance, the manticore was allegedly fast, more swift than its massive size should allow. It is so fast that supposedly no man can keep up with its lightning speed. To top this all off, the manticore is said to have extremely sharp claws — claws so sharp that they could cut a man into ribbons with a single swipe! Of course, making this creature even more terrifying, some accounts describe the manticore as being winged, like a dragon. Its tail is barbed and poisonous, having the capability of shootings its stingers towards its victims.
Imagine seeing a giant fissure open up, fire erupting into the sky as smoke and ash billow along the winds. You might think that this explosion was nothing else but the gates of Hell opening onto the earth. Well, that is exactly what the people in Iceland thought back in 1104: our first written record of a volcanic explosion from Hekla.
Hekla is a volcano in the south of Iceland. However, in 1104 when the volcano erupted there was quite the panic, especially from Christians who saw Hekla as one of the doorways into Hell. Now, the volcano is known for throwing lava bombs — up to twelve tons in size! — from its fire fountains, and as they travel into the cold night air, they begin to hiss due to the cooler temperatures. Well, when people had seen these projectiles, they believed them to be escaped spirits screaming in agony. Birds flying nearby would be accused of being souls circling the gates while others claimed that witches gathered around the crater to meet the devil and practice dark magic.
Folk medicine is comprised of rituals and medicines, herbs and crystals and stone. Even as a child, my mother would prepare an herbal tea when I was sick and it would go away within the day. And though it sounds a lot like ancient methods and miraculous magic, some people still use these techniques today. In fact, in the Ozarks there are those who still practice a lot of these rituals today. One such practice is the stopping of the flow of blood and the people who practice it are called “blood stoppers.”
However, in order to cure something more debilitating, the power doctor would stop the “unnatural” flow of blood by reciting bible verses — usually from the Book of Ezekiel. The belief that these people could stop the flow of blood was so powerful, that a story of a man who challenged a blood stopper traveled around in which he told the doctor to “try your luck on this beef.” According to the story, the skeptic went hungry as he killed the cow which never bled a single drop, ruining the meat in the end. Similar stories of blood stoppers helping those in need can be found in abundance, from a woman who went into a barn and prayed for three minutes while a man bleeding to death in a wagon just stopped bleeding altogether and was saved, all the way to a man who suffered a nosebleed and placed a chip beneath to catch the blood, keeping the chip in a safe place so that it would go undisturbed and he wouldn’t get a nosebleed again.
Imagine this: you are entering the underworld through the River Styx, and as you make your way towards the gates you see a three-headed dog guarding the entrance. He allows you to pass through, though you will never leave again. This is Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog who guards the gates of the Underworld.
One of the most famous stories regarding Cerberus was the twelfth labor of Heracles. Heracles was charged with capturing Cerberus and bringing him back from the Underworld. There are several versions of this story, however one of the famous ones involves Hades telling Heracles he could have Cerberus, so long as he defeated the animal using only the weapons he had carried with him. According to this version of the myth, Heracles uses his lion-skin shield to defend against two of the heads as he chokes the third, ending with Cerberus submitting to him. Hades says Heracles still could not take the creature, and so Heracles shoots Hades with a stone-tipped arrow and he concedes. In other accounts, the two do battle and Heracles wins.