My favourite subjects - 雪女

Yuki-onna (雪女, Yuki-onna, snow woman) is a spirit found in Japanese folklore.

Yuki-onna appears as a tall, beautiful woman with long hair. Her skin is inhumanly pale or even transparent, causing her to blend into the snowy landscape.

She sometimes wears a white kimono, but other legends describe her as nude, with only her face, hair, and pubic region standing out against the snow. Despite her inhuman beauty, her eyes can strike terror into mortals. She floats across the snow, leaving no footprints (in fact, some tales say she has no feet, a notable feature for many Japanese ghosts), and she can transform into a cloud of mist or snow if she is threatened.

In many stories, Yuki-onna reveals herself to travelers who find themselves trapped in snowstorms and uses her icy breath to leave them as frost-coated corpses. Other legends say that she leads them astray so they simply die of exposure. Other times, she manifests holding a child. When a well-intentioned soul takes the "child" from her, he or she is frozen in place.