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Valusa Zagnol
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(12/27/05 2:36 pm)
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Japanese tale: wife's secret
One of my favorite tales from Japanese sources is out of the Yukionna ("snow-woman") cycle. Yukionna is a figure of awe and terror inhabiting moutainous regions. She can appear to travelers in snowy country and, at her whim, help them if stranded or kill them with her icy touch. (Akira Kurosawa's last(?) movie--"Yume", a collection of dream-stories--has a Yukionna segment.)
The Lafcadio Hearn treatment of Yukionna in "Kwaidan" is the one that I am most familiar with. In this, a young man and an old one are caught out of doors, collecting firewood in winter. Yukionna appears in the night; she kills the old man, but finds the young one attractive and spares him. Some time later, the young man (having returned to his village) meets a mysterious young woman: She does not say where she comes from or who her family is. She manages to capture the young man's heart, and they marry. She is, of course, Yukionna; and at some point (before they wed? I don't recall) he is made aware of this. Yukionna extracts a promise from her husband: He must never reveal who she is. The husband assents, and the two have a good life together for many years.
Until the husband gets careless: At a time when the couple have several children, the husband relates the story of his adventure with Yukionna to the children and intimates that this is their mother. Yukionna discovers the betrayal of her secret and is enraged; she commits some atrocity (killing the husband? the kids? something) and leaves, never to be seen in the village again.
For years, I thought this just a charming Japanese tale with no relationship to any others. And then in 1990 I saw the movie "Tales from the Darkside", a collection of three tales. The third, "Lover's Vow", is a very similar story, though set in Los Angeles and with an animated gargoyle taking the place of Yukionna.
--Looking up this film online, I just now discovered that this segment is based on the "Woman of the Snow" segment in the 1964 movie, "Kwaidan". And here I thought I'd detected an independent emergence of the theme :)
So I don't really know if there is more than a single instantiation of this theme. But it seems like a natural:
<Wife is secretly a witch and husband is obliged to preserve secret. Husband eventually discloses secret, and wife takes vengeance.>
So my question: Is this theme anywhere else in evidence?
(The theme has so captured me that I did my own treatment of it, grafting it onto the story of Circe.)
Steve/Stacey
PS: Sorry about the "" moniker; I first got onto EZBoards through a Star Wars online game.
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coinilius
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(12/27/05 7:34 pm)
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Re: Japanese tale: wife's secret
Although the theme of the husband keeping the wifes secret isn't present, the basic structure and series of events in the tale remind me of the Kelpie from Irish mythology... but in the story of the Kelpie, the husband isn't obliged to keep his wife's secret, rather she leaves him never to be seen again after coming across her shed seal skin that he had been hiding from her one day.
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(12/27/05 8:24 pm)
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Re: Japanese tale: wife's secret
Another well-known tale of Japanese origin with similar themes is The Crane Wife. The theme of the wife having a secret identity and the husband eventually losing her when a taboo is broken is common. I'm not at home to give you more versions by consulting my references, but there are several picture books of The Crane Wife, including Dawn by Molly Bang, The Crane Wife by Odds Bodkin, and The Crane Wife by Sumiko Yagawa.
Heidi
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Rosemary Lake
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(12/27/05 9:40 pm)
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others
Istr several stories from British and European sources about a mysterious, non-human wife who gives a prohibition, and when it's broken (usually accidentally) she leaves suddenly. They often involved some sort of violation of her privacy, such as not to intrude on her at certain times (maybe when she's changing skins?). I don't remember her doing any violent revenge, but istr in one story (perhaps literary) all the children (in seal form) went with her.
Another common prohibition was against striking her, which then happened by accident when they were trying to catch a horse and the husband threw the bridle to her.
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Valusa Zagnol
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(12/28/05 2:45 am)
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Re: others
Rosemary, this is rather interesting:
"a mysterious, non-human wife who gives a prohibition, and when it's broken (usually accidentally) she leaves suddenly. They often involved some sort of violation of her privacy, such as not to intrude on her at certain times"
Do you think that sounds like a metaphor for prohibition against intruding on a woman during her menstruation?
Steve/Stacey
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Valusa Zagnol
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(12/28/05 3:11 am)
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Re: Japanese tale: wife's secret
Heidi,
Yes, there are strong points of similarity with the Crane Wife tale--thanks, I wasn't familiar with that.
Curiously, the version in the illustrated children's story at <www.e-village.jp/earth-c/...0010.html>
(who is that by? I can't find any identifiers) gives the woman a
name which perhaps is a variant of Yukionna, Yukiko (-ko is a typical
ending for feminine names in Japanese, acting much like a diminutive;
so that would be "little snow", if the yuki part is the
same kanji as in yukionna). I wonder if that's coincidence or deliberate
echoing on someone's part along the way.
Steve/Stacey
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