Who Is Minokichi?
The woodcutter who broke his promise to the Snow Woman
Minokichi is the hero of "Yuki-Onna" in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan, a young woodcutter from Musashi Province. Every day he went to the forest with the old woodcutter Mosaku, his master.
On a night of blizzard, Minokichi wakes in a ferryman's hut and sees a woman in white freeze Mosaku. Seeing how young he is, she spares his life and tells him never to speak of it. The next year he meets a traveling girl named O-Yuki, marries her, and they live happily with ten children. But many years later, watching O-Yuki sew one night, he says, "I once saw a woman who looked just like you," and tells her about that night.
Because he broke his promise, Minokichi keeps his life but loses the wife he loves forever. The regret of a man who could not keep a secret, and the sadness of the children left behind, make this story hard to forget.
