The Snow Woman

Now that the long cold nights of Winter are here, I'm thinking about my favorite Japanese folktale, The Snow Woman , Yuki Onna. I have never really understood the moral, if any, of this old tale - unless it is to honor your word. The Japanese anthology film from the 1960's, Kwaidon, has a nice, visually stunning, adaption of the story, which was taken from a version of the story retold in a 1903 collection of Japanese folktales by Lafcadio Hearn.