He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut had been forced open; and, by the snow-light (yuki-akari), he saw a woman in the room, – a woman all in white. She was bending above Mosaku, and blowing her breath upon him; – and her breath was like a bright white smoke. Almost in the same moment she turned to Minokichi, 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. For a little time she continued to look at him; – then she smiled, and she whispered: – “I intended to treat you like the other man. But I cannot help feeling some pity for you, – because you are so young…. You are a pretty boy, Minokichi; and I will not hurt you now. But, if you ever tell anybody – even your own mother about what you have seen this night, I shall know it; and then I will kill you…. Remember what I say!”

– Lafcadio Hearn, “Yuki-onna” (1904)

“Just a minor squall,” they said. “It will melt away by the afternoon,” they said.

They were wrong.

Recommended listening: Seeing Red – Ice (from a 1985 single)