This episode contains descriptions of partner violence and a brief reference to suicidal ideation. We advise extreme caution for listeners under 13.

The following is from Uki owner by Lafcadio Hearn.

The door of the hut had been forced open and by the Yukari the snow light, he saw a woman in the room, a woman all in white. She was bending above Masuku and blowing her breath upon him, and her breath was like a bright white smoke. Almost in the same moment, she turned to Minnucci and stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not utter any sound, the white woman bent down over him lower and lower until her face almost touched him.

And he saw that she was very beautiful, though her eyes made him afraid.

Hi, everyone, I'm Alastair Madden, and this is Haunted Places, Ghost Stories, a Spotify original from podcast. Ghost stories have arisen from every century and every corner of the world, from the streets of Victorian Whitechapel to the temples of Japan, where they're seated around the campfire or curled up with a pair of headphones. We return to them time and again to feel our skin crawl and our hearts race. Episodes of ghost stories are inspired by classic short stories from some of history's greatest authors.

The following version is our own unique take. It may feel familiar in some ways and different in others. We hope you enjoy it. You can find episodes of Ghost Stories and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today's story comes from a writer our listeners now know well. Lafcadio Hearn was a writer who traveled to Japan in 1890 for a short left assignment. But once he set foot on the islands, he never wanted to leave.

He would write more than 10 books about the country, but arguably the most famous is Kaidan stories and studies of strange things. This collection of traditional Japanese ghost stories and folk tales introduced the West to a new iteration of horror.

Tonights tale, Uki ONA combines the fear of a cold winter's night with a mistrust of strangers, reminding us we never know what's moving through the snow. Coming up, we'll see just how treacherous the snow can be. This episode is brought to you by Fan Sportsbook, don't just watch college basketball, get in the action and shoot your shot with the fan to a sports book app. There's more ways to play the bracket all tournament long. New users get your first bat risk free up to 1000 dollars.

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Minnucci had lived a long life. He was Musashi Province's greatest woodchopper, or perhaps just its oldest.

But as he sat by his half, his beautiful wife, Oyuki, sewing as his children slept beside him, he felt anything but great, for he had to tell her the tale that had made him feel old when he was still young.

The worst night of his life, the one she so beautifully distracted him from. Day after day, year after year, her snow kissed face warming his heart. He had been told to tell no one but a wife was something else entirely, she needed to know what he'd experienced. She needed to know what she'd been fighting all those years.

So he took a deep breath and told her a story of the howling wind during his 18th winter when a horrible monster nearly snatched his soul away. His mentor, most who liked to remind him that he was only a learner, an apprentice, he may have strode the forest since he was a child, but he did not know how to fell a tree. The old man insisted not so. It falls without harming the others, which is a woodcutters most sacred duty as it was wartime menarche and Walzak who were busier than usual.

The city of ADA was far from the fighting in the capital, but the distant, clanking footsteps of the samurai still made the ground shake. The dark night sky was illuminated by flames, ash, wood, dust, the surrounding buildings and children would sometimes try to catch pieces of it in their hands. They had confused it for Snow, never realizing it was coming from burnt corpses. Hollow eyed peasants travelled from shrine to shrine in search of safety and consolation.

More people meant more fires and more fires meant more wood, so more Saku and Minnucci were making the five mile trek to the forests every chance they could. It was a simple route out of the village, across a wide river and up the slope of the mountain. They donated much of their stock to a bridge for the river. But it soon washed away so the people of the village agreed to heed the committee's warnings. A ferry crossing was built instead.

As such, they were bound by the ferry means hours. If they took too long to collect their wood, people on the other side would have to wait for them, and the woodcutters would be depriving them of shelter. It was an unenviable situation. They had kept good hours that fateful night, but as soon as they saw the dock in the distance, the wind picked up. Snow came from every corner until the dock was covered entirely.

Minnoch feared old Masaka would lose his footing, so he clasped his hand as they made their way down to the crossing. But the ferryman had abandoned his post. His little boat's mocking them as it sat on the village side of the rising river. Osako let out a deep and weary cough and pulled his apprentice towards the ferryman hut to spend the night. It was too small to hold any sort of fire. There was barely enough room for their two mats as they bedded down, huddling together under sodden raincoats.

It is quite wet, but not so cold, Masako said. The storm will abate in a moment. Young one sleep. Then he promptly took his own advice and slept himself. But Minnucci could not follow him. He feared he might never wake up. Masako was right. There was more damp than chill. But that could change if the cold grew as they slept, frostbite would eat away at their bodies and they would never open their eyes again.

You've seen me in this state, you know, he said to his wife in the present, when my mind runs away with me, she nodded sadly held by a weight he could not allow himself to see. Not until his tale was done. Minnoch had checked that the door was latched and stared up at the roof of the small hut, telling himself to believe Masuku. But the air grew colder and colder. He could not manage it, but still sleep carried him away.

He woke in utter darkness, the act of breathing hurt, his skin was wet and freezing, the wind blowing in his face. The door had blown open, sending snow circling around him. He turned to Masako, who was still sleeping before leaping up to close the door. As he turned back around, he saw a form in the open doorway in the soft light of the moon. On the glittering snow was a woman more beautiful than any he had ever seen.

At that point in his life, her skin glowed in the Yukari. The snow light and her stark white clothes made it seem that only her pale face and dark hair existed beyond the swirling storm. She was bending over Masako as if she was going to kiss him good night. But Masako had had a lifetime of affection and menarche. She was still wading into the waters of romance. Minnoch She had never been kissed and he wanted desperately to be the one to receive it.

It didn't seem fair, he added to Oyuki sheepishly. His wife laughed at him a little, a dry, sad laugh, cold as the snow Minnoch watch the strange woman closely.

If he couldn't have her kiss, he wanted to live vicariously through his master, but she never touched his skin. Instead, she only opened her mouth.

A bright white smoke left her perfect lips and cascaded onto his still face.

Minnoch knew enough of the world to know this was unusual, but he could not figure out how she had done it.

He could feel the chill of her breath.

Even standing at a short distance, the entire room grew colder. Snow drifted onto the floor. The woman appeared to grow bigger than the room. In the next moments, she'd shrunk back to her normal size. It was impossible. He looked to Masako to see if he had any answers, but he was still Minnoch. She wondered for a moment if he was lost in some sort of strange ecstasy. But then he caught the hue of his skin, blue and gray and frosted.

Masako was no more. Minnucci shivered either with fear or cold. He wasn't sure he did his best to lie as still as he possibly could, hoping the strange woman would leave him be. But she only stepped closer, her form lowered over him. He opened his mouth to cry out for help. Yet he discovered he could make no sound at all. She laughed at him. The sound filled him with something like Joy. He wanted her to laugh again.

Masako had once cautioned him against spending what little free time he had on wooing girls as his apprentice. He listened. But on this strange night when death was so near, he wanted a fleeting glance at what flirtation felt like. She'd laughed at him and he felt he pleased her in some unknown way, he wanted it to happen again. He wanted her to keep looking at him with those soft eyes in a way that felt almost like affection. He wanted her to love him before she destroyed him.

The older menarche winced as he faced his wife. How horrible is that, my love, he said. But Oyuki only smiled, pained. The snow woman smiled down at him as she spoke that fateful night. I had intended to treat you like your master, but I pity you.

She looked puzzled at the very thought, perhaps because you are so young. She put her hands on each side of Minox face, brushing his frost covid hair out of his eyes. Her touch made his skin sting frostbitten.

You are a pretty boy, you know, kitschy. And I will not hurt you now. But if you ever tell anybody what you have seen this night. I shall know it. And I will kill you, she placed one finger at the end of his nose, quickly pressing gently before drawing it back.

Remember what I say, she hissed. And then she was gone. His voice finally returned to him, he yelped and leapt up to stand in the doorway, searching the snow for her. But there was no one, no footprints or shadows. He couldn't tell if it was his eyes or the landscape, but something was shifting around him. He felt nauseated and told himself it was only how suddenly he'd gotten up.

He shook his head in confusion and drew back into the hut, closing the door behind him.

The floorboards tilted as his steps faltered, the sight of his frozen master proved to be too much for him. After such a strange vision, he fell to the floor of the hut where the ferry master found him. The next day, the elder Minnoch faltered. Then his story spent. He could not bring himself to look at his bride of many years. You already know, my darling Oyuki, that I was sick for a long time after that, that I still have nightmares today.

But I'd never told you the cause. I know it might be a great risk, but you are my beloved wife and I feel you should know it. You who came to me like a spirit when I needed you. I feel very strongly that your presence is the only thing that keeps the daytime such a friendly place for me as my age grows closer to mousakas. When he passed, the nightmares get worse. I fear the winter. I fear that she will finally come for me and finish what was started so long ago.

Please don't be offended that I compared you to that horrible dream that you, Kiona, the woman of the snow. It's just that asleep or awake. That was the only time that I saw being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being, and I was afraid of her, very much afraid. But she was so white she could only dream of having skin like yours, your perfect lips and eyes, that glitter like snow light.

You are so full of life, my love, but you are like snow even in spring, somehow always pale and shimmering. He expected his wife to blush then, but she only considered him with a long, sad look. He continued. He had to get it out. I am so grateful I met you, Oyuki. When I did, I was so frightened to return to the forest, to my fears. But then you were there, standing on the snowy path.

He paused, something had changed between them, something as cold and dangerous as that horrible storm like you were waiting for me, he finished and The Dark Knight settled in between them, a night they'd shared once long ago.

Up next, Oyuki speaks, you discover their practices, seek their advice, and let yourself become more vulnerable than ever before, they have the ability to heal. What the doctors can't or so they say. Hi, listeners. It's Vanessa from the podcast series Cults. Be sure to check out our four part special on Myracle Healers airing right now. Meet figures from around the world who claimed powers and pushed remedies. But Harbord more sinister intentions. You don't want to miss it.

And if you're looking for more episodes on the most radical and deadly groups in history, tune into cults every Tuesday from Jim Jones and the People's Temple to Charles Manson and the Manson family. To Keith Ranieri and Nexium, you'll uncover the unscrupulous methods used to turn bright eyed recruits into diehard believers. Follow the Spotify original from podcast Cults Free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Sports Sportsbook fan dual dotcom four terms and restrictions. Gambling problem call one 800 gambler. Now back to the story. Menarche and Oyuki had been married many years. Their love story was the stuff of legend in the village known for its difficulty nor complications, but for its Felicity. They were so well suited, such a perfect fit.

But this story, Minnoch had told, had broken something in them, something Oyuki was struggling to articulate. I remember so clearly the third time I saw, you know, she began, you were walking off the ferry with a bundle of wood in your arms, our eyes met and you nearly lost your balance. I tried to hide my laughter behind my hands, but you caught me. He had bounded over to her, claiming that he just heard the most beautiful sound, her laugh, and would like to hear it again.

Her eyes had widened at such a brazen display of interest. I would trip a million times, he said, if it meant you would smile again. She could not help but giggle at his foolishness, she had known then that they could have a lifetime together, but he demurred when she asked him if he was pledged to marry.

He made her wonder. And as the proverb goes, when the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth.

He invited her home with him. She had never had a home, not that she remembered she lived in the abandoned places, the points of the world where only she was supposed to be.

She learned to wash his clothes and prepare meals that would bring a smile to his face, she went through her daily chores with ease, thinking of him coming through the door with his bundle of wood. You always tripped at the entrance and I laughed. She sighed.

You tell me that you're nowhere near close to a million fools yet. But my smile is worth it every time. Oyuki had always been pale, worryingly so if you asked her mother in law. But menarche, she had always waived her concerns away. His wife glowed with the snow light that was magical and beautiful. Not sickly or strange, but she was different. Now that sunlit, soft white powder had grown icy, distant, sitting on a mountaintop.

Her voice was sad as she considered him. Now, when I watch you sleep, I feel the wind rise within me, the urge to freeze you so you would never move again passes through me. Your features have deepened as we've aged, and I love to trace the ways that you've grown. I want you to stop growing for a moment so I may catalogue it all. I want to watch you at my leisure. I want you to never move so I can keep looking at you, never worrying that you will get trapped by some spirit and never return.

Their first son was a miracle, she hadn't realized this beautiful, horrible thing would happen again and again because she loved him. Our little neocon's, we send flowers, she said, poking through the snow. I love the Minnoch, I do, I have never wanted to hurt them, all 10 of them, our little ones, every time the cold rises in me, the hungry wind, I look at your sons and daughters and remember they come from you.

But on this horrible, fateful night, he had turned to her as she was finishing the mending, his voice tender and wistful to see you sewing there with the light on your face, makes me think of a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of 18.

I then saw somebody who's beautiful and white, as you are now. Indeed, she was very like you, Oyuki had stared at the fire, then back to her, sewing a skill she would have never learned if his mother hadn't taught her. Tell me about her.

She said, compelled by a force that felt somehow outside herself. The wind on the mountain. Where did you see her? And he told her he broke his promise. He'd stumbled over himself, trying to say he didn't love a murderer more than his wife.

Refusing to acknowledge the truth, his wife cried bitterly, praising my snow light eyes, my snow white skin. You had to know then, hadn't you? Minnoch didn't know what to say. He was frozen trying to understand the puzzle that was his wife. She only laughed that snowy laugh again, the kind that hurt and chilled.

Before I met you, I didn't remember where I came from.

I heard the travellers whisper that I was lost and died in the snow, or that I never lived at all.

That I am only a blizzard attempting cold to lonely men who yearn to step in to the white and disappear until the spring thaws. I don't know how to love. But I loved you all the same. You know, Keiichi didn't know what to say. He didn't know if he should hate her. Love her, believe her. He was lost in the swirling white again. Meeno, Kichi, my sweet, foolish boy, if only your eyes were not so bright, your head not so soft, your lips not so tempting.

Yes, then you would have died in that hut those many years ago. But I would not suffer now, knowing how I have to hurt you. Your Uki, your snow maiden.

She'd watched him leave the hut that morning, all those years ago, hiding as a mist on the mountainside, she'd hoped he would return, but it was many days, many weeks before he was well enough. I am sorry to have hurt you, love, she said, tears freezing in her throat. I am sorry even now. She'd waited there on the mountain, perhaps to apologize, but she had also been angry in a way she didn't understand anger at the storm for bringing him to her, anger at him, for being him, and anger at herself, for caring.

She began to plot how she would destroy him, he would climb up the slope only to be swallowed by her cold call, she would send ice down his throat, kiss him until he was frozen and could breathe no more. She sniffled. But you may know, Kichi, you are so much lovelier when you're breathing. I meant to trap you, but you trapped me.

I said my name was Oyuki, which should have been your first hint, my innocent, trusting darling, a pretty name for Snow, she had said she was on her way to Aido in search of an arrangement as a servant. He had asked her if she was betrothed. She told him she was free, even though that was the false best thing she could say. The house grew cold as she confessed. When I stand beside you, Minnucci, there is no winter wind in my throat.

There is no ice around my heart. It hurts my husband. I ached to tell you.

To destroy you, to hurt you, for changing me. To tell you the truth, I am your bright summer days. But I am also your nightmares. Tears choked, her voice freezing on her white cheeks. But I told you I would kill you if you said one word about it. I knew that if you ever spoke to me about what I had done, I could not hide what I was. You would recognize me in my shame. Our little paradise would crumble.

As you looked at me with fear in your eyes, you promised you would never breathe a word of what I had done to your master. But you did. You did. You would do that to me, to them, our little ones. There they were, her little jewels sleeping on their cots, their limbs draped over each other, thumbs and mouths, hair mussed, every one of them looked like him. The wind slowed and the snow settled.

She looked at him, the love she did not know she was capable of. I would kill you if not for the children. So you must take care of them. If I hear one word of complaint from them, I will do what I promised. Menarche sputtered, mouth agape What do you mean? She screamed at him, I'm leaving, you fool, I will not stay. Not when you'd risk.

So the word carried into one long moan. Her voice grew thinner and thinner until it was the crying of the wind. She knew now that she must never see him again. If she did, she would kill him. She was done with love for her sorrow was deeper than it had ever been before. She had been a creature of the elements, a natural law consuming heat and life, because that is what coal does now.

She consumes because it makes the heartache her less. It dulls the cold and emptiness. There is no warmth for her, so there will be none for you. She dissolved into snow, swirling to the roof beams and out through the smoke hold, never to be seen again. Not by no kichi. But if you stand on the mountain in the gray and the white, if you hear a soft, wistful breath of a woman in pain, have pity on her, have pity on her and run.

There are enough snow spirits in Japan to fill a whole book, even if you limit the list to the Uki owner, the snow woman, you get many variations on the word Euchner yobbo, snow wife, Yuki Masuma Snow daughter and even Yuki Juro Snow, sex worker.

The origin and level of malevolence of the Yuki owner. A dependent on the region of Japan, you're exploring most a malevolent tricking and trapping travelers with riddles or calls for help.

Many of the stories and Lafcadio Hans Kaidan are collected from Japanese members of his own household, including his wife. He says that his take on the lucky owner was taken from a local. Some suggest that the story came from Shuja and Ohana, a father and daughter who hailed from the AMU District of Tokyo and worked as servants in his house. Whatever the source, Hearn's version represents a more romantic take on the snow spirit. His interpretation blends the Japanese snow, yura or ghost with a folktale element Hurn would have grown up with in Ireland, the selkie a supernatural being capable of transforming from a seal into a human.

The archetypal selkie tale involves a man who steals the skin from a selkie which binds her to him and to land in some versions of the selkie story. And in Hearn's telling of Euchner, it is the wife's love of her children that saves her husband from punishment when her supernatural identity is revealed. But the yukky owner is unique in her nature. She is an element, not an animal, a manifestation of a feeling of force, not a creature. You might be able to capture a seal, but you cannot capture the winter wind.

Not unless she wishes to be caught. Thanks again for tuning into haunted places, ghost stories, we will be back on Thursday with a new episode. You can find more episodes of Ghost Stories and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify.

See you on the other side. Haunted Places Ghost Stories is a Spotify original from podcast. It is executive produced by Max Cutler, Sound Design by Keri Murphy with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Isabel Away. This episode of Haunted Places Ghost Stories was written by little Dorita and Jennifer Rachet with writing assistants by Greg Castro, fact checking by Adrianna Romero and research by Mikki Taylor. I'm Alistair Murden.