Yamauba, Yamamba or Yamanba are variations on the name of a yōkai

Yōkai

are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...

  found in Japanese

Japanese

Japanese refers to anything that originates in Japan, an island country in East Asia. Used as a noun, it may also refer to:* Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan...

 folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

.

Description in Classical Japanese Folklore

Depending on the text and translator, the Yamauba appears as a monstrous Crone

Crone

The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...

, “her unkempt hair long and golden white ... her kimono filthy and tattered,” with cannibalistic tendencies. In one tale a mother traveling to her village is forced to give birth in a mountain hut assisted by an apparent kindly old woman, only to discover, when it is too late, that the stranger is actually Yamauba with plans to eat her newborn child. In other story the yōkai

Yōkai

are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...

 raises the orphan hero Kintarō

Kintaro

is a folk hero from Japanese folklore. A child of superhuman strength, he was raised by a mountain hag on Mount Ashigara. He became friendly with the animals of the mountain, and later, after catching Shutendouji, the terror of the region around Mount Ooe, he became a loyal follower of Minamoto no...

, who goes on to became the famous warrior Sakata no Kintoki.

Yamauba is said to have a mouth at the top of her head under her hair. In one story it is related that her only weakness is a certain flower containing her soul.

Yamauba in Western Literature

Steve Berman's short story, “A Troll on a Mountain with a Girl” features Yamauba.

Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn , known also by the Japanese name , was an international writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things...

, writing primarily for a Western audience, tells a tale like this:

Then [they] saw the Yama-Uba,—the "Mountain Nurse." Legend says she catches little children and nurses them for awhile, and then devours them. The Yama-Uba did not clutch at us, because her hands were occupied with a nice little boy, whom she was just going to eat. The child had been made wonderfully pretty to heighten the effect. The spectre, hovering in the air above a tomb at some distance ... had no eyes; its long hair hung loose; its white robe floated light as smoke. I thought of a statement in a composition by one of my pupils about ghosts: "Their greatest peculiarity is that they have no feet." Then I jumped again, for the thing, quite soundlessly, but very swiftly, made through the air at me.

Yamauba in Noh Drama

In one Noh

Noh

, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...

 drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

, translated as, Yamauba, Dame of the Mountain, Komparu Zenchiku

Komparu Zenchiku

Komparu Zenchiku was a skilled Japanese Noh actor, troupe leader, and playwright. His plays are particularly characterized by an intricate, allusive, and subtle style inherited from Zeami which convolved yūgen with influences from Zen Buddhism and Kegon...

 states the following:

Yamauba is the fairy of the mountains, which have been under her care since the world began. She decks them with snow in winter, with blossoms in spring ... She has grown very old. Wild white hair hangs down her shoulders; her face is very thin. There was a courtesan of the Capital who made a dance representing the wanderings of Yamauba. It had such success that people called this courtesan Yamauba though her real name was Hyakuma.

The play takes place one evening as Hyakuma is traveling to visit the Zenko Temple in Shinano

Shinano

Shinano may refer to:* Shinano, Nagano, a town in Nagano prefecture, Japan* Shinano River, the longest river in Japan* Shinano Province, one of the old provinces of Japan...

, when she accepts the hospitality of a woman who turns out to be none other than the real Yamauba, herself.