Japanese Urban Legends

The Snake Woman (Nure-Onna)

Do you enjoy a nice, cool swim on a hot day? Perhaps you are particularly averse to receiving a cooling dose of urine at the local swimming pool? Maybe you just like the sand beneath your toes as you walk the beaches, choosing a nice, quiet, isolated spot from the rest of the city plebs.

You put down your towel, throw off the constricting second skin that is your clothing, and head toward the waves.

But hark! You spot a woman in the water; long black hair flowing around her alabaster skin as she flails weakly. With speed and grace to rival the very best studs of the Baywatch era, you fling yourself into the oddly calm waters and swim her way.

You swim toward the endangered beauty, your eyes meeting as you work desperately to save your drowning Ophelia.

...except that now you seem to be paralyzed. Also, Ariel now appears to be using her long, prehensile snake-body to gracefully close the romantic distance between you. Perhaps, you consider, she simply wishes to save you from this terminal case of leg cramps? Perhaps the piercing of your tender man-flesh by her snake-like tongue is some odd form of mermaid CPR? No, you are now being slowly digested by the Snake Woman, or, "Nure-Onna".

The moral of the story should be fairly obvious: Don't try to save a drowning woman. She could be a snake-monster in disguise!