The witch from the mountains

Once on a woody mountain, the birds chirped gladly and a serene breeze ran on a river. A young lady who carried in her womb her first child was walking on the path to her village, and the child began to kick faster and stronger cause he wanted to come out and meet the light. The young lady got scared and imposed herself to reach at least a humble hut not far in distance to give birth to her child.

It was there that she witnessed the apparition of an old, hideous woman, with her mouth that stretched for all the length of her face and another hidden in the back of her head full of long dirty hair, with the name of Yama-Uba.

One could imagine the scare on the young expecting lady, but terror did not cross her mind, as the old monstrous woman disguised as a beautiful and kind dame who lived in the depth of those mountains.

She lured the innocent mother to be with the offering of helping her to deliver her baby in the safest way and the young woman accepted, relieved to have found help in such a remote location. She couldn't see the blood stains on the other's dirty and tattered kimono.

Everything seemed to go wonderfully. The lovely manners of the witch deceived the woman who laid almost without energy, seduced by appearance, the evilest she could come into.

As the mischievous midwife took the baby to wash him, or that's what she wanted the mother to believe, the latter fell into a deep sleep, due to the fatigue that she encountered after the long labour. But the intention of the evil crone steered far away from helping her unaware victim, as her only intention was to drop the infant into the profound pit on the back of her shack to kill him and eat his freshly and quickly dead meat.

While this tragedy occurred not far away from her, the loving parent was already thinking of the name that she wanted his strong boy to have, and the name Junzen came to her mind, as the look on her son's face was pure and delightful. Soon a nightmare struck her, as a wind from the top engulfed her in a cold embrace and spat her in a never-ending chasm where an evil and oddly familiar face flashed before her eyes. This evil face was the one of that not loving old lady that helped her in her travail, the one who took her firstborn from her.

Before an awful death could take the young lady away from life, she arrived at the end of the obscure abyss in pure devastation, as she landed on white, tiny, freshly skinned bones, the ones of her child. The responsible for this macabre crime stood right beside her, laughing in delight. She should haven't trusted the old woman who now appeared in her dirty and horrible attire, ready to give the mother the same treatment reserved for the child who lived a few minutes in that world.

The defeated parent gathered her last strength and with all the aw that the grief gave her, cursed the witch to become a mother in the coming month, giving birth to a strong boy loved by the humans and the animals, but her love for him would eventually kill her living her incredibly beloved child as an orphan. The crone laughed unimpressed by the dying's words and soon as she died, ate her still crying flesh.

She didn't know that one of her oldest enemies was watching her and decided to make the mother's last will, the truth. He struck a bolt of lightning through the witch's body and an exact month later, still old and filthy she gave birth to a healthy strong boy.

She hasn't forgotten her last victim's curse, and the love that she felt for the young boy disgusted her, but she couldn't feel it in any other way. Kintarō, the Golden Boy, was the name she gave him.

He was growing fast, as much as a month in a single day and she couldn't take that increasingly strong love that she sensed the need of tearing apart her meat, as she did with her preys. Like that came her end, following the curse thrown by the innocent mother, with water dripping onto her dead crone's corpse.

Inspired by the album Story of Yama​-​Uba 山姥物語 by Goryō, featured on In The Woods' channel. If you like adventures that's the right place to go.