Kurozuka/Adachigahara : PhotoStory

Yūkei, a mountain priest from Kii province (present-day Wakayama Prefecture), meets a woman who lives alone in Adachigahara (Fukushima Prefecture).

The sun has already set. Yūkei and his party ask the woman, who appears past middle age, for a night’s lodging.

The woman isn’t keen at first, but Yūkei and the others are in sorry state in the autumn cold and she lets them stay.

Yūkei sees a spinning wheel. In response to his request, the woman spins some hemp yarn by hand.

The spinning is like the endless cycle of rebirth, and the woman laments the fleeting nature of existence.

The woman warned them not to look in her bedroom, but one of Yūkei’s party disobeys and peeks inside. There is a mountain of dead bodies.

She is a famous ogre. Terrified, Yūkei and his group flee. The female devil’s voice follows them.

Thunder roars in the rain. The devil approaches, her mouth open to eat them.

Facing certain death, Yūkei and his group pray. The devil soon vanishes, along with the evening storm.

At Adachigahara Temple, there is a cave where the ogre is said to have shut herself away.