onna-no

Updated: June 25, 2025

The long black tresses of each would uncoil and hiss and strive to devour those of the other and even the mirrors of the sleepers would dash themselves together for, saith an ancient proverb, kagami onna-no tamashii 'a Mirror is the Soul of a Woman. And there is a famous tradition of one Kato Sayemon Shigenji, who beheld in the night the hair of his wife and the hair of his concubine, changed into vipers, writhing together and hissing and biting.

Lafcadio Hearn - Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan : Second Series