In a village in the province of Musashi lived two woodcutters, Mosaku and Minokichi. Mosaku was an old man, Minokichi a lad of eighteen. Every day the two went to a forest about two ri from the village. On the way was a wide river, crossed by ferry.
One bitterly cold evening, on the way home, they were caught in a great snowstorm. When they reached the ferry, they found the ferryman had gone home, leaving his boat on the far bank. The two took refuge in the ferryman's hut, shut the door and lay down. There was not even a brazier. The old man soon fell asleep, but the wind and the cold kept Minokichi awake for a long time.
Snow blowing on his face woke him, and he saw the door of the hut was open. In the snow-light stood a woman dressed all in white. She was bending over the sleeping Mosaku, blowing her white breath on him. Then she turned to Minokichi and gazed down into his face. She was terribly beautiful, and her eyes shone cold.
"I meant to treat you like the old man. But you are so young, I feel pity for you. Never tell anyone, not even your mother, what you have seen tonight. If you do, I will kill you." With that she vanished through the doorway into the storm. Mosaku had frozen to death.
On a winter evening the following year, Minokichi met a beautiful girl named Oyuki on the road. Oyuki stayed at Minokichi's house, and before long they were married. Oyuki served her mother-in-law well and bore ten children, yet she stayed as young and lovely as the day she came to the village.
One night, watching Oyuki's profile as she sewed by the lamp, Minokichi spoke without thinking: "Looking at you reminds me of a strange thing I saw when I was eighteen. A beautiful woman, as white as you..." And he told her about the night of the blizzard.
Oyuki flung down her sewing, sprang up and bent over him, crying, "It was I, Yuki, I! I told you then that if you ever said one word, I would kill you. But for those children asleep there, I would take your life this moment. Take good care of them. If they ever have reason to complain of you, I will deal with you as you deserve." Her voice grew thin as the crying of the wind; she melted into a white mist that rose through the smoke hole, and she never came back.
In his preface Hearn writes that he heard this story from a farmer of Chofu village in Nishitama district, Musashi, today's Ome in Tokyo. On the bank of the Tama River at Ome, at the foot of Chofu Bridge, stands a monument marking "the place connected with Yuki-Onna."