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In our first solo Halloween-themed episode of the year, Lizzie discusses Yamauba, a frightening old woman spirit from Japanese folklore. We talk about the different stories surrounding her, as well as what she as a folk character can say about society overall.
(musical intro)
Zoe
Hello, and welcome to Mytholadies, the podcast where we talk about women from folklore and mythology all over the world. We're your hosts.
Lizzie
I'm Lizzie.
Zoe
And I'm Zoe. And Lizzie, how are you today?
Lizzie
I'm fine. Um, switching it up a bit with the intro.
Zoe
Did I?
Lizzie
You said folklore and mythology. We usually say mythology and folklore.
Zoe
Instead of mythology and folklore? Oh, no, I was so distracted because before we were recording, we were (Lizzie laughs) singing random songs and I was trying not to--I-I was just completely thrown off by that. Um. Yeah, so that was fun. Um, I don't know. What was it? Oh, yes. We were singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Mis. That was fun.
Zoe
Is it our two--is it two years or three years?
Lizzie
People don't need to know that we're lame. By the way, it's almost our two-year anniversary. Like when this episode airs, it'll have been a couple of days ago.
Lizzie
Two years.
Zoe
Oh, wow.
Lizzie
2020.
Zoe
Right. Rightrightrightrightright. Pandemic (Lizzie laughs). Wow. Well, happy two-year anniversary to us. We are doing nothing to celebrate. Um, except still existing.
Lizzie
Yeah. Good for us.
Zoe
Yeah. If you want to help us celebrate our two-year anniversary (Lizzie laughs), um, you should donate to our Ko-fi.
Lizzie
Give us money.
Zoe
Give us some money, yeah. Woo-woo.
Lizzie
But also we we've been doing this for two years. Like, good for us.
Zoe
Yeah, it's very impressive.
Zoe
(overlapping) Yeah, 64 episodes. It's a nice round number for, um, two years, I would say. Eight-squared.
Lizzie
60+ episodes. It's great. 64, in fact.
Lizzie
Mm. Yeah. It's divisible by two (laughs).
Zoe
But yeah, I'm back at college. I'm recording in my good old soundproof room in the library. So I'm excited about that. Um, yeah. So as I said before, um, before we begin, we have a Ko-fi. You can donate to that with a one-time or recurring donation and listen to our bonus episodes. Our bonus episodes are also available on Spotify for a monthly donation of $4.99 a month. And yeah, they're really fun episodes. We've got three of them now. We talk about various different pieces of literature, such as Daughter the Moon Goddess, A Thousand Ships, and of course now Strega Nona, everyone's favorite children's book. So yeah, check that out if you so desire.
Lizzie
Yes.
Zoe
Yeah. Anyways, Lizzie, who are we talking about today?
Lizzie
So since it's Halloween season, I decided to talk about someone kind of Halloween/spooky-themed.
Zoe
Good.
Lizzie
And it's also someone we've talked about before actually, but not in depth.
Zoe
Really?
Lizzie
Yes, we--
Zoe
Okay.
Lizzie
We have talked about her actually, in two episodes, and--
Zoe
Two episodes.
Lizzie
And she is Yamauba (山姥).
Zoe
Yama--oh, yes. I remember her.
Lizzie
Yeah. So what do you--
Zoe
What was the other episode we talked about her in?
Lizzie
Zoe
Oh, right. Right, right. Yeah. Well, she's an old woman, obviously, if we talked about her in the crones episode, and she's Japanese if we talked about her in the yōkai episode.
Lizzie
Yes.
Zoe
Is she the one who lives in the mountains?
Lizzie
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Zoe
Okay. Yeah. Lives in the mountains, has a hut, invites people in probably, feels like the standard for that.
Lizzie
I mean, occasionally, I guess, but that's not like the main thing.
Zoe
Okay. Yeah. But yeah, very fun. Yeah.
Lizzie
Is that all--do you remember anything else about her?
Zoe
No.
Lizzie
Okay.
Zoe
Does she grow really large?
Lizzie
No.
Zoe
She's not the skeleton one. Okay, cool.
Lizzie
No (laughs). Anyway, so--
Zoe
That was a different one. Okay, cool. Anyways.
Lizzie
Yeah, so--
Zoe
Check out our yōkai episode for the skeleton lady. Anyways, yes, tell me about her.
Lizzie
So a Yamauba is a type of female yōkai associated with mountains. And we've talked about yōkai before, for example, in the Yōkai episode. But for those who don't know, a yōkai is a supernatural being or phenomenon in Japanese folklore. The term is broad and includes human and animal spirits, plants, objects, natural phenomena, or anything that can't be easily explained.
Zoe
Cool!
Lizzie
Before the Muromachi Period, which was from 1336-1573, the majority of shapeshifting yōkai took male forms when they appeared in front of humans. But after the Ōnin War, which took place 1467-1477, female yōkai became far more common and appeared much more prevalently in these stories.
Zoe
Hmm. Do you know why?
Lizzie
There are a couple of proposed reasons for this.
Zoe
Okay.
Lizzie
The historian Ema Tsutomu wrote in 1923 that the reason for this involves the fact that in the early modern period, ghosts are motivated by passions or grudges, which were traits more commonly associated with women, you know? Obviously.
Zoe
Of course. That's what I always say.
Lizzie
And so when yōkai associated with animals, plants or tools became personified, being female made it easier for them to trick men. So just basically like, women are jealous and irrational, so they make good spirits, you know.
Zoe
Of course.
Lizzie
And that's-that's one explanation. Another one is that because women tended to play the role of messengers between the worlds and stories, it was easier for them to become yōkai, particularly since women are more strongly attuned to the spirit realm than men. So just women are more spiritual. And Noriko Reiter, who wrote the book Mountain Witches about Yamauba--sidenote, I found this book in a Barnes and Noble, and I saw it and I was like, Oh, I can make a whole episode about it. This was months ago. So I'm excited to--
Zoe
Really?
Lizzie
Yeah, I saw it on a shelf in Barnes and Noble.
Zoe
Cool.
Lizzie
And it's a good book, by the way.
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
I was the fourth person to give it a rating on Goodreads, so that was fun.
Zoe
Wow.
Lizzie
Anyway, though--so I used that source a lot this episode. So she speculates that the reason for more female yōkai had more to do with societal changes surrounding women in Japan. Women's rights were really dismal in early modern Japan, so women probably found their emotional outlet in such ghostly demonic figures.
Zoe
Cool.
Lizzie
And also similarly, men's feelings towards women may also have increased the number of female yōkai. So yeah, there could be misogyny involved, but it could also be, like, women using such stories as, like, outlets to express their hardships, you know?
Zoe
Mm hmm. Yeah, very cool.
Lizzie
Yeah. So, etymology. So Yamauba consists of two characters: Yama, which means "mountain," and Uba, which means "old woman."
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
And she's sometimes called yamanba or yamamba, which--both those, like, nasalized forms are more common in the performing arts, you know, like in plays, whereas--
Zoe
Interesting!
Lizzie
Yeah. Whereas Yamauba is typical when referring to folklore.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
So Yamauba is not one figure, but a type of figure that's found in different forms across many different types of folktales. She has many different attributes and associations, which we're gonna talk about more, but the only two attributes that always appear in her stories: she's always a woman, and she's always associated with mountains.
Zoe
So she's not always old.
Lizzie
She's almost always old, but every so often there is some kind of more glamorized figure for like--
Zoe
The young, sexy Yamauba.
Lizzie
(laughs) Yeah, but some--some--yeah, usually, she's an old woman, like almost always.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
Which, like, her name means mountain witch, or old woman in the mountains. So like, those are like--
Zoe
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lizzie
--the pieces of information that are in her name, you know?
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
Yeah. So yeah, that's somewhat of a given. But also, yeah, mountains are viewed as the dwelling places of spirits and entrances to the other world, and are liminal spaces. There are many stories of people going into the mountains and having strange and disorienting experiences. And as we'll talk more about in a bit, there was also folk beliefs of people abandoning old people, particularly old women, in the mountains to die.
Zoe
Mm hmm. And so the mountains is liminal spaces, is that, like, in general culture? Is that like, something specifically in Japanese culture, or...
Lizzie
I feel like it's in general, but it's certainly in the--in the context I'm talking about, it is certainly a belief from Japanese, you know, ancient and medieval and early modern folk beliefs. Like, I mean, if you think about it, like, mountains are scary, you know.
Zoe
Oh, they're so dangerous.
Lizzie
Yeah. And like--so weird things would happen to people on mountains. And also, I mean, just--I mean, mountains are really like intimidating. And it's scary.
Zoe
Yeah, I mean, I think especially before, like, modern technology advances with roads and, like, safer climbing equipment, it's not uncommon to go into the mountains and just never come back.
Lizzie
Yeah. But also like in Japan, there's folk beliefs associated with like, mountains or places where there's ancestor spirits and that kind of thing.
Zoe
Yeah, very cool.
Lizzie
So it is Japanese specific, but also not just, really.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
I feel like mountains are kind of liminal in general, right?
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
In some ways. I mean, like, if you're on a mountain in the modern day, like, it can still be kind of like scary, right?
Zoe
For sure. For sure, yeah.
Lizzie
Anyway, though. Mountains are commonly associated with spirits and supernatural phenomena. And there's also an association with old women, like, so there's evidence already from the medieval and ancient periods in Japan of beliefs of something eerie lurking in mountains.
Zoe
Ooh.
Lizzie
And--
Zoe
Love that.
Lizzie
Yeah (laughs). There's also evidence dating really far back of people's fears of an old strange woman living in the mountains.
Zoe
(whispered) Wow.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
I'm sorry. I just think that's so fun.
Lizzie
I know (laughs).
Zoe
And spooky.
Lizzie
The term Yamauba is first tested shortly before the Ōnin War, so before 1467, like, Shortly before that. But there are also descriptions of Yamauba-esque figures many centuries earlier. So like, she--or, like, Yamauba existed before she, like, had a name, you know.
Lizzie
Which, Noriko Reider speculates that the reason that the term "Yamauba" came into being around this period is because such women in the mountains, whether real or not, became more visible during this period, particularly by travelers and religious practitioners. People were traveling more during this period in general due to the country's expansion, and people were suddenly crossing mountains much more frequently to go to unknown places.
Zoe
Mm.
Zoe
Yeah, makes sense.
Lizzie
Yeah. And side note, like, religious practitioners in-in specific were a lot of the people who transmitted such stories around this time.
Zoe
Hmm.
Lizzie
Yeah. I mean, because you're traveling a lot, you know...
Zoe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They-they are the other people who are gonna be traveling the most compared to, like...
Lizzie
Yeah, and they're occasionally the protagonists of these stories, you know.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. So there was more chances to come across such a creature as a Yamauba. So she needed a more specific name, where before she would have just been referred to as an oni, which, oni is another term to describe supernatural creatures like yōkai. The difference is that they have a more negative and malevolent association. So an explanation that I saw: supernatural entities that are worshipped are called kami, those who are not worshipped are called yōkai. And yōkai with strong negative associations are oni. So, yeah. Oni are not worshipped and they're scary and evil.
Zoe
Gotcha. Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And Yamauba is often considered to be a female oni, but they're also some things that set her apart. Like oni-oni women are often depicted as jealous, and also with horns on their head, um, whereas Yamauba is not considered vengeful, and she's usually not depicted with horns. Like sometimes you'll see that, but usually she just looks like it--it looks kind of like a scary old woman. Like, haggard hair, like, lots of wrinkles, occasionally, you'll see like fangs, you know.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
But yeah. One of Yamauba's most conspicuous traits is their association with eating people.
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
Yeah, there are several stories associating Yamauba with eating people. So this first story is called "Three Charms." A Buddhist monk in a mountain temple gives the boy three charms to protect himself. As he leaves, an old woman invites him into her house for the night. During the night, the boy peeks into her room and sees that she has taken a monstrous shape--realizes that he's--she's a Yamauba.
Zoe
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. And she tries to eat him. Yeah.
Zoe
But...Oh, is that it?
Lizzie
No, there's more (laughs).
Zoe
Okay (laughs). But--
Lizzie
He--he uses the three charms, each of which delay her. And then she makes it to the Buddhist temple and the monk shuts the gate and kills her.
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
So--but also in some versions of that story, the Buddhist monk challenges her to disguise contest.
Zoe
Ooh!
Lizzie
She turns herself into a bean, and then the monk eats her.
Zoe
That's incredible. I love that (laughs).
Lizzie
It reminds me of “Puss and Boots.”
Zoe
It--yeah, it totally does, right?
Lizzie
Yeah. Which is--(laughs) it is fun, yeah. And so in that story, it shows her man-eating qualities and her powers of transformation. But it also depicts her as simple-minded, since she's able to be easily outwitted.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
Yeah. And this next story is called, um, "The wife who does not eat." So, a man mutters to himself one day that he wants a wife who does not eat
Zoe
Okay, well, screw that guy.
Lizzie
I know.
Lizzie
I know (laughs).
Zoe
First of all. That sucks.
Zoe
I hate him already. He's--like, okay.
Lizzie
Yeah, he's not, like, that likeable so far.
Zoe
(laughs) Already, this premise is bad and I don't like it.
Lizzie
And so soon a woman appears at his house and says that since she doesn't eat, she would like to be his wife. The man marries her. But then when he leaves the house, she eats ravenously using a mouth at the back of her head.
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
Which she keeps hidden during the day. When the man finds out the truth, she reveals her true appearance as a Yamauba and she throws him into a tub, which she carries on her head towards the mountains. The man is able to escape and kills her by throwing mugwort and iris at her.
Zoe
Okay, well, boo, hiss (Lizzie laughs). Um, that guy should be eaten.
Lizzie
I know.
Zoe
That guy deserved to be eaten.
Lizzie
It shows her powers of transformation again, and her man-eating tendencies, and also depicts her with a ravenous appetite.
Zoe
Yeah, it's just a fascinating little story, like, gender dynamics-wise.
Lizzie
Oh, it actually doesn't actually mention that she was going to eat him anyway.
Zoe
I feel like it's implied.
Lizzie
(laughs) Yeah.
Zoe
Like she's putting him in a tub of water, you know?
Lizzie
Oh, yeah. Fair.
Zoe
Like, what's she gonna do besides boil him?
Lizzie
True? It's-it's-it's-it's implied, but it's not stated. (laughs) Anyway.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
So this next story is called "The Ox-leader and the yamauba." A yamauba approaches a man carrying fish in his ox cart. The-the man is carrying fish in his ox cart.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And she demands the fish and then the ox for her to eat. And after she eats those, she sets her sights on eating the man. He ends up escaping and killing her. So.
Zoe
It's fun how each of these have escapes because then it's like, they survived to tell the story.
Lizzie
They-yeah, exactly. They-they survived to tell the tale otherwise, how would we know the story? (laughs)
Zoe
Yeah that's how scary stories like these, you know, are able to spread is like, I escaped!
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly.
Zoe
So I can tell you about this horrifying monster, you know? So fun.
Lizzie
Mm hmm. And yeah, in the last two stories in particular, "The wife who does not eat" and "The Ox-leader and the yamauba" show a preoccupation with the dangers of female consumption.
Zoe
Yeah!
Lizzie
Which like--
Zoe
Very interesting.
Lizzie
Yeah, Noriko Reider points out that such fears can be a product of memories of famine and villages. Like it's difficult to feed everyone.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
But it can also be a product of suppressed female desire for food.
Zoe
Yeah!
Lizzie
This is especially relevant because in Japan, especially for women, having too big an appetite is frowned upon. Which I--
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
--definitely came across in the story, you know?
Zoe
Yeah, I mean--
Lizzie
People have to eat, like...
Zoe
The fact that a guy's like, I want a wife who doesn't eat and that's just like, okay, cool. That's a normal thing to say. That's fine, like--(laughs)
Lizzie
That's not possible. That's not, biologically.
Zoe
Yeah! Like, other guys are like, yeah, man, me too, you know.
Lizzie
Yeah (laughs).
Zoe
Like, that sounds great. It's like, hello. There's some-something going on there.
Lizzie
It's so annoying having to feed women (laughs).
Zoe
It's like, you're not even feeding her, probably. She's probably the one who's cooking.
Lizzie
True.
Zoe
So like, yeah. I mean, yeah. Then there's can be famine things of like, Oh, if I had a wife that didn't eat, then we wouldn't have to worry about feeding her.
Lizzie
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Zoe
How do you think that people work? Like, they're not gonna survive if they don't--it's a story, it's a story. Logic doesn't apply always anyways.
Lizzie
I mean, like, it likes--it exemplifies this sort of female scary creatures often kind of personify fears about women, like women should not eat too much. And there's this woman who has a mouth in the back of her head and eats a lot. And that's super scary.
Zoe
Yeah, absolutely. And then the fear of--if we take the assumption that at the end of that story, the woman is going to eat him, the fear of being consumed by your wife. Like--
Lizzie
Because if a woman eats, that sucks.
Zoe
Or if--even if it's, like, a metaphorical consumption of like, the wife is too much.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
And like, overtakes you, whether in, like, you know, a physical way of like, oh, she literally will kill you and eat you, or a metaphorical way of like, she is stronger than you. She is funnier than you, smarter than you, more charismatic than you, you know, whatever.
Lizzie
Cause you should always be better than your wife because women are terrible.
Zoe
Yeah. Because women are naturally inferior.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
And so if you're not better than your wife, then something is wrong, you know.
Lizzie
Mm hmm. And women shouldn't have needs also.
Zoe
Yeah, exactly. That's what I always say.
Lizzie
(laughs) Yeah, exactly. So the next aspect we're going to talk about is her position as a positive figure, and particularly as a magical helper, which is fun.
Zoe
Oh, okay! Can I just say, big Baba Yaga vibes?
Lizzie
Yeah, no, yeah, definitely (laughs).
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
Yeah, so this story is called "Komebuku and Awabuku." So Komebuku's stepmother sends her and her stepsister, who's called Awabuku, to the mountain to fill bags with chestnuts. But she gives Komebuku a bag with holes, and then a regular to Awabuku.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And the two lose their way back from the mountain, and they find a house that turns out to be Yamauba's house. She lets them in and allows them to hide in her house because an oni lives nearby, and so thus, she saves their lives.
Zoe
Mm hmm. So true.
Lizzie
She also--she also asks them to help remove the lice on her head. And--
Zoe
Oh, my gosh.
Lizzie
Komebuku helps her, but Awabuku does not. Classic.
Zoe
I see.
Lizzie
And when they leave, the yamauba gives Komebuku a treasure box and Awabuku some roasted beans. Later, the stepmother takes Awabuku to a play, you know, to the theater, but makes Komebuku stay and do chores.
Zoe
Hmm.
Lizzie
And Komebuku finishes the tasks with help of a traveling priest and a sparrow--
Zoe
Hmm.
Lizzie
--and goes to the play wearing beautiful clothes from the treasure box, that Yamauba gave her.
Zoe
Uh huh. Uh huh.
Lizzie
And then a young man falls in love with her.
Zoe
Uh huh, uh huh!
Lizzie
And they get married. And then the--
Zoe
Uh huh!
Lizzie
And then the step-mother and -sister fall into a stream and turn into mud snails. The end (Zoe laughs).
Zoe
Cinderella vibes, Cinderella vibes.
Lizzie
Yeah, it's like literally, ticking off--I think, all of the different aspects of a Cinderella story. Like, there's--
Zoe
Except there's no slipper test, but besides that.
Lizzie
Oh yeah. Besides that, there's like--there's a magical helper, there's the--
Zoe
A girl is abused by her family
Lizzie
Stepmother. Stepsister.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah, and there's the falling in love with a--well, I don't know. He's probably not a prince, but like, a wealthy man--
Zoe
A nice guy.
Lizzie
--you know, and getting married.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And um, yeah, like, that's pretty fun.
Zoe
I love whenever fairy tales are like, and then these people had this really awful dramatic fate afterwards.
Lizzie
Yeah, they turned into snails (laughs)
Zoe
Cause they sucked. And it's like yeah, pettiness, we-we-we don't forgive here.
Lizzie
Yeah, totally (laughs).
Zoe
It's so funny.
Lizzie
And so this next story, kind of similar, is called a Blossom Princess. So the heroine of the story, Blossom Princess, is treated horribly by her stepmother. And one day she comes across Yamauba's dwelling in a cave in the mountains. And the yamauba tells Blossom Princess that her husband is an oni and hides from him, so she does not get eaten.
Zoe
Interesting.
Lizzie
And she also gives her directions of where to go, and she also gives her treasures that save her later on in the story.
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
And something interesting about the story is that later on, Blossom Princess and her family hold a memorial service for the yamauba so that she can finally rest in peace, cause the yamauba in this story was an oni because she didn't have anybody to pray for her, since oni are thought to be unattended souls, and that's why they roam the world harming people.
Zoe
Aww. That's so sad.
Lizzie
Yeah, so like, them giving her a memorial is, like, extremely kind.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
But also in the story, the yamauba is given a fearful appearance, and Blossom Princess is scared of her at first. But in spite of her appearance, she's portrayed as helpful and nice. So. Yeah, that's a nice story.
Zoe
That's interesting. Yeah, that's really sweet.
Lizzie
Yeah. And something to note about these stories, as opposed to many of the other Yamauba stories, is that Yamauba is a figure who is bound to a house, whereas stories of her more malicious side tend to take place elsewhere.
Zoe
Huh.
Lizzie
Out in the wild, you know.
Zoe
Interesting. Yeah.
Lizzie
She's benevolent when she stays in the house, but she's evil when she ventures out into the world, which--
Zoe
I see.
Lizzie
Yeah, it's in line of the kind of historical views of women around this time.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
Like, women were meant to stay in the house. And--
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
The house-bound yamauba is nice, usually.
Zoe
Yeah. She's-she's doing her womanly duty. She's taking care of the people that come by.
Lizzie
Yeah. Which is--which is an interesting like, aspect, I mean.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Like, if you stay in the house and you're nice, like, that's great for a woman, you know, that's what you're supposed to do.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And when she especially, like, goes out to, like, seek whatever for herself, food, amusement, then she becomes evil.
Zoe
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Lizzie
But yeah. Another attribute that's kind of more positive is her associations with fertility and weaving.
Zoe
Interesting!
Lizzie
Yeah. And like, weaving is often associated with fertility, just in general. So a story from 1460 from a Zen priest states that a yamauba gave birth to four children, and they were called Good spring, Summer rain, Good autumn, and Winter rain. And then the abundant rainfall from that year was said to be because of her fertility, like, her having those four children.
Zoe
Hmm!
Lizzie
Which--yeah, so that's interesting, 'cause it gives kind of the impression of, like, a fertility goddess, you know?
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And the naming of the children, like, they're not just called spring, summer, autumn, winter, they're, like, Good spring, Good autumn, you know, which kind of suggests a hope or like a prayer for good weather for the coming year, you know.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And there's also a belief in rural areas that there was a mountain deity that gave birth to twelve children every year.
Zoe
Mm!
Lizzie
And-yeah, those children symbolized the twelve months of the year, and then she was therefore known as Mrs. Twelve. Which is nice.
Zoe
Huh.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Interesting!
Lizzie
Yeah. And there's other stories that associate her with childbirth and fertility in various ways. Like, there's one where the yamauba would babysit children while spinning yarn. Until one day she ate a child and the family killed her.
Zoe
Oh. Oops, I guess.
Lizzie
Yeah. She's also sometimes associated with midwifery.
Zoe
Fascinating!
Lizzie
Yeah, sometimes she's--
Zoe
That she's associated with both midwifery and, um--
Lizzie
Eating-eating kids?
Zoe
Eating kids. I guess, you know, you could think of that as sort of a metaphor of like, you know, sometimes kids die.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Especially in, like, this time period. You know, sometimes kids die.
Lizzie
Yeah, definitely (laughs).
Lizzie
But yeah, sometimes, she--sometimes she gives--sometimes she gives birth to children, sometimes she helps give birth to children, you know.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Zoe
Sometimes she eats children.
Lizzie
Yeah (laughs).
Zoe
You know, all the normal stuff.
Lizzie
Yeah. And there are some beliefs that paint Yamauba as a remnant of, uh, some sort of ancient goddess. One belief is that she was originally a water deity.
Zoe
Oh!
Lizzie
But then she fell from grace. And that was sort of, you know, alongside the, like, lowering in status of, like, you know, Gods.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
From the time, you know, and then she was given meaner attributes which--yeah, and mountain deities and water deities were identified together. There's a hypothesis that the mountain deities came down to play in the paddy fields in the spring and became a deity of the paddies, then went back to the mountain after the harvest and went back to being a mountain deity the rest of the year.
Zoe
Huh! Interesting.
Lizzie
And so the mountain deity-deity is associated with water and enriching the fields. So the association of fertility from there is also clear, you know.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And the association with deities also makes sense with Yamauba's dual nature because, you know, gods usually have a dual nature.
Zoe
Yeah, yeah, they definitely do.
Lizzie
She can be evil, but she can also be helpful. And there's also another theory that says that Yamauba was originally a maiden who waited on a mountain deity, and that these maidens tended to live long and eventually became old women. And then-and then they were Yamauba.
Zoe
And then they just stayed old woman forever?
Lizzie
They were just, like, old women of the mountain, you know?
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
I guess (laughs).
Zoe
That sounds fun. I-I'd be down for that.
Lizzie
Right. Sounds pretty cool.
Zoe
As long as I wasn't, like, actually experiencing old age pains and just looked old.
Lizzie
Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, exactly (laughs). If my body wasn't deteriorating, that'd great.
Zoe
Yeah, if my body wasn't deteriorating, then I would love to be on a mountain. Otherwise, I think then we would run into some problems.
Lizzie
Another thing associated with fertility about her is--so she's associated a lot with weaving, like I said, which is--which also resulted in her being associated with spiders as well.
Zoe
Oh!
Lizzie
Which like, it's a pretty clear association--spiders weave webs, Yamauba weaves on her loom.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Zoe
Yeah!
Lizzie
Spiders catch prey on their webs, and--
Lizzie
And Yamauba can also catch and eat prey. Sometimes.
Zoe
Yeah, she can. So true.
Lizzie
But--yeah, but also it's possible that spiders were considered to be a temporary form of water deities back in olden days.
Zoe
Hm!
Lizzie
So yeah. So like, fertility, weaving, spiders, deities--like, it's all related in this view.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And so her associations with fertility are, like, pretty positive. And--but like also sort of neutral to negative, as it tends to be with deities. She can be helpful, but also feared.
Zoe
Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty standard, yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. And there are also some stories where she can read minds or tell the future, which--
Zoe
Wow!
Lizzie
--I'm not gonna go, like, too much into right now, but there will be stories, like, where she'll appear to freak people out by saying their thoughts out loud to them.
Zoe
(laughs) Like, just-just for fun.
Lizzie
Yeah, like, literally just for fun.
Zoe
Wow.
Lizzie
Like, not with the intent to-to kill them (laughs).
Zoe
I feel like she's just bored, and she's just coming up with things to do.
Lizzie
Yeah. Which, like--
Zoe
She's like, oh, well, I guess I'll just appear and freak this guy out now. Oh, well, I'll go mess with these travelers.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Things like that.
Lizzie
Yeah. But like-like, she isn't doing it with the intent to kill or eat her victims. She just likes to tease people for amusement, which is fun.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And--
Zoe
Just mess around.
Lizzie
Yeah. And it's interesting, because her mind-reading abilities and her maneating tendencies do not appear in the same stories. The stories about her killing and eating people don't feature any mind-reading or fortune telling abilities.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
So it seems like her attributes are often singular, like, not overlapping, really, with other attributes a lot of the time. So that's fun.
Zoe
Interesting. Yeah.
Lizzie
And another thing associated with Yamauba stories is practices of abandoning old people, specifically old women--
Zoe
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Lizzie
--on mountains to die.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
I've seen this in various places as a potential origin story for Yamauba. Like, they-they want revenge on people who have done this to them. Like, it comes about from this practice.
Zoe
Yeah, which, fair. Fair, yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. Which, like, I want to start off by saying that there is no evidence of this ever being a common practice in Japan.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
The-the practice is called ubasute or obasute, which literally means discard or abandon old woman with the uba from yamauba. And it has appeared pretty commonly in Japanese folklore.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
But first of all, the majority of these stories have a happy ending, or at least look at the abandoned old woman sympathetically.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
A common tale-type for these stories basically goes, like somebody has an elderly mother or, like, mother-in-law or something, and decides to abandon her on a mountain for whatever reason; because she's a burden to them, because the wife doesn't like her, whatever. So--
Zoe
Wow.
Lizzie
But then they--
Zoe
But is it usually during times of hardship normally, or...?
Lizzie
I feel like it probably is often, but not always. Like in these stories--like, sometimes just--sometimes it's just like, the wife doesn't like her. So she's like, get rid of her, you know.
Zoe
Huh. Interesting. Okay.
Lizzie
That's not hardship. It's just being mean.
Zoe
People sucking, yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. And then--yeah, the person will, like, change their mind and/or realize their elderly relatives' value, and then they will not bring them to the mountain.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
Turn back. Another common type, less common, I think, is like, the old woman is abandoned, but then she becomes wealthy with help from an oni or a deity.
Zoe
Nice.
Lizzie
And then the ungrateful relatives that put her there are punished.
Zoe
Cool. I like that story.
Lizzie
Yeah. So like, as you can see, ubasute is looked upon negatively in these stories, and these stories read more as like, kind of cautionary tales that teach people to value their elders.
Zoe
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Lizzie
So like, not anything that would suggest that people actually did it.
Zoe
Yes. Yeah. So it's less like, um, here's a story about a practice that is common, and more like a, here's an extreme version of someone not--
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
--honoring their elders so much that they, like, were literally just gonna abandon them to die.
Lizzie
Yeah. And like, that's bad. And it's clearly bad.
Zoe
Yeah. Which is like so absurd. And like, a bit of a hypothetical as opposed to like--
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly. It's like a--it's like, symbolic. It's not something that really--people really did, or like, if they--if anybody ever did that, it certainly wasn't like, commonplace.
Zoe
Yeah. As opposed to like, in Europe where they very much were exposing their newborns to die.
Lizzie
They were?
Zoe
Oh, yeah, for sure. That was a big thing.
Lizzie
Oh, yeah. That happens in Greek mythology sometimes.
Zoe
It happens in Greek mythology. It was a big thing in the north, and it was just--you know, I mean, it was like--because they didn't think they could care for them.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
It wasn't just for fun. It was--
Lizzie
Yeah, no, it was--
Zoe
--I don't have food to care for another child, so...
Lizzie
Yeah. That sucks.
Zoe
And this one was just born. So, you know. Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
That was definitely a thing that actually happened, as opposed to this, which might just be more of, like, a metaphor, like a--
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly.
Zoe
--oh, my gosh, this people were so disrespectful to their elders, they were literally just gonna abandon them to die! But then the elders, like, were able to survive, and they got punished. And that's why you should respect your elders, you know.
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly.
Zoe
Which is sort of what that sounds like.
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly.
Zoe
To me.
Lizzie
And another thing to keep in mind is that for a long time, life expectancy in Japan was very low. In 1947, the life expectancy for a man was 50, and for a woman, it was 54. So we can probably assume that it was about that or lower in, like, the medieval period, you know.
Zoe
Yeah. Probably lower, depending on your social status too.
Lizzie
Yeah. So like, elderly people were very rare. Most people didn't make it to old age. And another thing to keep in mind, which Noriko Reider talks about, is that many of these stories also took place at a time before people would have been able to understand dementia, which--
Zoe
Oh!
Lizzie
--helps understand the Yamauba stories a lot.
Zoe
Interesting!
Lizzie
Yeah. Cause if it was like, you have an old grandmother who, like, randomly wanders into the mountains, cause--
Zoe
Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!
Lizzie
--she just doesn't know where she is, or like, starts not making any sense. Then it's like, she's been possessed by a Yamauba, you know?
Zoe
Scary.
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly. It's scary. And like--
Zoe
Yeah, like, dementia is scary, even when you know what's happening.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Like, you--you know, theoretically what's going on, it's still scary. And when you don't even have a word for it, it's definitely, like, oh my gosh, my--
Lizzie
Yeah, like how do you even explain it? If you don't know what's going on.
Zoe
My beloved grandparent or mother has, or father has been possessed by a demon. And there's nothing I can do about it.
Lizzie
Yeah, and then there would also be stories that were like--like an old woman became--became senile and became a yamauba and tried to eat children, you know.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
So, yeah. Elderly people were rare, and an elderly person with dementia, or, like, some other condition that would cause a worsening of someone's mental state would also be uncommon and hard to understand. And so dementia could be seen as a yamauba's doing which, like--another thing is that yōkai are often unexplainable phenomena or like, personified forms--
Zoe
Yeah!
Lizzie
--of unexplainable phenomena, so...
Zoe
For sure.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Because you have to explain unexplainable phenomena somehow.
Lizzie
Yeah, exactly.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And so yeah, like I said, it was not--it was never a common practice. There's no evidence to suggest that it was. And it was unlikely that it ever happened. And such stories were intended to encourage filial piety. And it seems like they were necessary to be honest, because people often did disrespect their elderly relatives, and considered them to be burdens and like--like you said, like in times of hardship, it is difficult to care for people. And--
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And like in modern-day Japan, there's an alarmingly high rate of suicide among elderly people. Like that's--
Zoe
Geez.
Lizzie
--an issue.
Zoe
That's awful.
Lizzie
And I mean, like, ageism is prevalent everywhere, you know, so you can kind of imagine, like--
Zoe
Yeah. Yeah, and also suicide is like, you know, still considered kind of an honorable form of death, um, like, traditionally in Japan, too.
Lizzie
Yeah. Yeah, I guess. And so elderly women in folktales are rarely looked upon kindly, you know. There's always--there's always room for a message about like, treat old people better.
Zoe
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think the way we view elderly people--I mean, like, in the US is really awful and concerning, in a lot of ways.
Lizzie
Definitely. Yeah.
Zoe
And so I think it's really important to be like, elderly people are people, and they should be treated kindly. And they're not a burden or a drain on our social resources.
Lizzie
(overlapping) And they have inherent value, yeah.
Zoe
And they have inherent value as people.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
And one day, you're gonna be like them, too.
Lizzie
If you're lucky, you know?
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Like, not everyone gets to live to, like--I mean, I feel like a lot of the older people in these stories were like, sixty, you know, which isn't actually old. But like, if one dies at fifty, sixty is gonna seem extremely old.
Zoe
Yeah. I mean, or, like, seventy. Like, gosh, you know.
Lizzie
That's unheard of. Like, that's such an accomplishment.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Like, to reach above the life--the average life expectancy. Yeah, that's like a--that's a huge accomplishment.
Zoe
Yeah. And I mean, also, a lot of the way that we view the elderly is just like, also just ableism.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Like, oh, these people, like, can't take care of themselves, they're not doing anything, they're not working, and stuff. And it's like--or, like, I don't wanna become like that. It's just like--
Lizzie
It's definitely a fear. Yeah.
Zoe
It's just--it's all just code for like, I don't wanna be--become disabled in a lot of ways, when it's like, well, if you live that way, you're almost definitely--
Lizzie
Or, I don't wanna care for my family.
Zoe
Yeah, it's--you're almost definitely gonna to become disabled in some way. And that's not--shouldn't be a terrifying prospect. It should be--and motivate you to make the world better for disabled people.
Lizzie
Yeah. Yeah, and so, Noriko Reider gave a talk about Yamauba in Japan in 2019. And she writes about--like, it was to an audience mostly of senior citizens.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And she writes about one response she got from elderly woman in the audience: "Senior women have no choice but to become Yamauba. They have the duality of good and evil, facing society with their instinct, and grieve their karma."
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
So with this in mind, you consider these stories about ubasute sort of reckoning with how old women were treated, and are treated.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And these stories can have moral lessons on how to treat elderly people, but they can also be sort of manifestations of people's thoughts at the time, like, people probably did consider their elderly relatives a burden a lot of the time. And--
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
--like, that's not good, but, like, that's probably how it was at times.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And like, regardless, there's a moral in these stories that elderly people should be treated better.
Zoe
Yeah! Absolutely.
Lizzie
Yeah, and also, like, people sometimes hear these types of stories and think that it means that these practices were common in Japan, but they were not. And, I mean, we said this already, but like, the fact that they were--that these stories were told kind of shows that they were not commonplace because it's considered to be really radical and cruel, you know?
Zoe
Yeah. Mm hmm. And like, all these stories are like, this is a bad thing. Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
Like, don't do this. This is bad.
Lizzie
It's not considered to be normal. It's not even, like, a necessary evil. It's, like, something that just is, like, an unfathomable evil--
Lizzie
--in a lot of these stories, like, it's--it's clearly wrong.
Zoe
Yeah.
Zoe
Yeah, it's like, the people who did this were horrifically punished. So don't do that, or else you'll be horrifically punished.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. Yamauba are figures that are defined by their duality. They can be malicious or helpful; they can kill and eat people, but they can also give birth and nurture.
Lizzie
And they also exist in liminal spaces.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
They are considered to be oni, but they're exempt from the jealousy and rage that is characteristic of oni. Yamauba can be malicious, but she doesn't appear in many stories where she's vengeful, or jealous or anything.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. Which I think is interesting, 'cause I feel like my--
Zoe
I think that is interesting.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
--I first kind of felt Yamauba, is that like, they were like, out for revenge.
Lizzie
But that's like, really not a common feature of their stories at all.
Zoe
Yeah! No, no, no, no. Very interesting.
Lizzie
And I feel like if you look closely at a lot of Yamauba stories, you can begin to understand her.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
And like, there were many stories that I read that I didn't include for, you know, time reasons. Like, there's--
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
This is just, like, a primer on her stories. There's many more.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Yamauba are by nature solitary creatures, and you never see stories that contain multiple Yamauba.
Zoe
Which is sad.
Lizzie
Even though they are a type of creature and not one individual figure, they never appear in groups, and there are never stories of two yamauba coexisting.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
It's her nature to be solitary, to not feel a need to connect with people or engage in community or society. The figure of the yamauba is lonely. She's cast aside, feared, and marginalized. She's set aside from society geographically, as well as emotionally.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And I think that especially if you take into account stories of yamauba that are associated with elder abandonment, there's something to be said for yamauba stories cautioning against isolating people, just--
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
--from a more broad sense as well. Like, the women--the woman who said that senior women have no choice but to be yamauba, yamauba are separated from community, they have no one to look out for them or pray for them, and this is an essential aspect of their character. And this could be taken not only from a kind of elderly standpoint, like we were talking about, but also kind of a feminist standpoint.
Zoe
Yeah. Yeah.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
'Cause like we were talking about earlier, like, women's roles were declining, and their rights were limited. And that's lonely and isolating. That's also not good to do to people, you know.
Lizzie
Like, people need community.
Zoe
And it's also interesting, though, because it's sort of, in a way, like opposite of women's roles, because it's sort of like, well, women are supposed to be around people to take care of them, which is also in a way very isolating, and like, not a nice way to live.
Lizzie
Yeah.
Zoe
And so there's a way you have to be around people, um, in a way where you're equals and you're coexisting together in a way that's beneficial for both of you. You can't just, you know, be around people.
Lizzie
And you're being cared for, you're not just taking--
Zoe
Yeah, there's, like, that mutually beneficial relationship where of course, you are caring for people to some extent, but also people are caring for you. Because you both deserve that level of care.
Lizzie
Yeah, even though stories of ubasute are unlikely, there's also something to be said for, like, the spiritual and emotional abandonment that causes people to live on the periphery of society, which then leads them to becoming fearsome like Yamauba. And like, you know, wandering the world because no one will pray for you, you know?
Zoe
Yeah. For sure.
Lizzie
And as you can imagine, yamauba still take up important places in Japanese culture. In the Studio Ghibli films, Spirited Away--have you watched that?
Zoe
Yes. The woman, right? With the giant baby.
Lizzie
Yeah, Yubaba. Yeah, exactly, with the giant baby. So the character Yubaba is partially modeled after Yamauba. Yubaba is an old witch who owns the bathhouse where a lot of the movie takes place, and she's the main antagonist of the film. There are some differences between Yubaba and a yamauba, but they do also have some of the same attributes.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
Yubaba also has powers of transformation.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
She has a son, which is similar to some yamauba stories. Not all of them, certainly.
Zoe
Really? Okay.
Lizzie
Yeah, there's actually one-one story I didn't talk about really at all where she is the mother of this guy who becomes kind of like a superhero-esque--
Zoe
Interesting.
Lizzie
--figure, you know?
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
Yeah. So she is a mother sometimes. And she gave birth to the four seasons and the twelve months, you know? She's sometimes a mother.
Zoe
Right, right--oh, yes. Yes, of course. Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah. And, um, just as Yamauba lives in the mountains, Yuaba lives on the top floor of the bathhouse, you know, kind of higher than everyone else.
Zoe
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Lizzie
And Yubaba runs the bathhouse in this kind of liminal un-otherworld within the movie and Yamauba's mountain dwelling. Like I said before, it's also a liminal space that can be understood as a kind of otherworld or the entrance to another world.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
And also Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film Throne of Blood--I assume you haven't watched that?
Zoe
I haven't. But I--Kurosawa's an icon.
Lizzie
I mean, he's super famous. So that-that movie has a yamauba character, which is--
Zoe
Really?
Lizzie
--it's an adaptation of Macbeth, actually.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
And the three witches from the original play are replaced with one yamauba, who, like, tells the fortune of the Macbeth character.
Zoe
That's really cool. I'm being so normal about my proximity to a theater right now (Lizzie laughs).
Lizzie
Oh, you can't say Macbeth.
Zoe
I can, I'm not in a theater. I'm just being very normal about it.
Lizzie
Oh, so you can say it, just not in the theater.
Zoe
Yes.
Lizzie
Okay. The Scottish Play.
Zoe
Yeah. Well also, you're in the Netherlands. So you're fine.
Lizzie
I mean, I'm--I'm still saying Macbeth. I'm not a theatre kid, so I don't really care (laughs).
Zoe
Yeah, there's that, too.
Lizzie
Yeah. But she's also associated with spiders cause she lives in the spider's web forest, which is where the movie takes place.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
So that's also fun. And there's also this sort of subculture of teenage girls from the late 90s and early 2000s.
Zoe
Really?
Lizzie
Yeah. Who are called yamanba-gyaru, which means, like, yamanba gals, kind of. Have you heard of them at all? Like, they're--
Zoe
No. That's so fun.
Lizzie
So yeah, the subculture began in Shibuya, the district of Tokyo, and like, it was the district--it's, like, this really big district associated with like--there's a bunch of shopping and stuff, and like, it's not weird to like, walk around in crazy clothes, you know?
Zoe
Uh huh. Yeah.
Lizzie
Yeah, and their attributes include white-blond, silver, or gray hair, which is often damaged or spiked, white lips--
Zoe
Wow.
Lizzie
--panda-like makeup with white or glitter around the eyes, and a dark tan, which--the trend grew from the fashion trend ganguro, which was similarly non-traditional and rebellious, like, forms of fashion and makeup and stuff, but yamanba-gyaru are distinguished by their white or bleached hair, which--
Zoe
Cool.
Lizzie
--is what earned them the term yumanba-gyaru, because their hair looks similar to a yamauba's, you know.
Lizzie
And it's possible it was kind of given to them, like, derogatorily, and they kind of like reclaimed it, you know, like--
Zoe
Uh huh.
Zoe
Uh huh.
Lizzie
Yeah, I wanna be Yamauba, you know.
Zoe
Interesting.
Lizzie
It's like their--their appearance was meant to look kind of, you know, scary and intimidating, you know, teenage girls, rebellion, etc. But like, sort of like a protective measure, in a way to avoid being belittled, you know.
Zoe
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Lizzie
Which is fun. But that trend started dying down in the early 2000s, and it's pretty uncommon now.
Zoe
Aww. Maybe people will bring it back. Maybe we'll bring it back (Lizzie laughs). We'll see.
Lizzie
I don't know about that.
Zoe
We'll see.
Lizzie
Involves, like, really dark tanning, like, unnatural levels of tanning.
Zoe
Oh, that's kind of weird.
Lizzie
Yeah. I don't think that would fly now (laughs).
Zoe
No, I don't--I don't know if I like that.
Lizzie
Or then, probably. This wasn't that--this wasn't that long ago. It was like 20 years ago.
Lizzie
I do think it's fun to kind of just like, have this sort of subculture that's like, really named after Yamauba.
Zoe
Yeah.
Zoe
Yeah.
Lizzie
Like yeah, I'm a yamauba gal. Like, that's awesome.
Zoe
Yeah, that's fun.
Lizzie
(laughs) Yeah, buh--yeah, so like, I talked a lot about--in this episode about various different aspects of the yamauba which developed over hundreds of years of literary traditions and in oral traditions, and adapted to social changes.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
And Yamauba-esque figures like Yubaba and the witch from Throne of Blood show how the yamauba archetype is continually recreated by applying Yamauba's attributes, which--like, not trying to create faithful representations of the yamauba, but adapting and recreating her character over and over.
Zoe
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Lizzie
Which I think is nice. It's like, she's kept alive by modern media. She's passed on to the next generation.
Zoe
Yeah, I mean I feel like that's how folklore works, right?
Lizzie
I mean yeah, exactly. It's just like a continuation of like, the folklore tradition, just like, in, you know, movies and whatever else.
Zoe
New forms of storytelling.
Lizzie
Yeah, and it keeps her alive in the cultural imagination, which I think is awesome. Yeah, and her longevity, as a figure can be attributed to her multidimensional nature. People can apply their own interpretations onto her, or to like, to express whatever ideas or views they have. There's a lot to go off of. So yeah.
Zoe
Mm hmm.
Lizzie
I think she's really fun.
Zoe
Yeah, she is really fun. Well, thank you so much for this week's episode, Lizzie. If you enjoyed it, please feel free to subscribe, tell all your friends, please leave us a review, donate to our Ko-fi or Spotify, and we'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Thank you so much.
Lizzie
Bye.
Zoe
Goodbye.
Outro, underscored by music:
Zoe
Mytholadies podcast is produced by Elizabeth LaCroix and Zoe Koeninger. Today's episode was researched and presented by Elizabeth LaCroix. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter @Mytholadies, and visit us on our website at mytholadies.com. Our cover is by Helena Cailleaux. Our music was written and performed by Icarus Tyree. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
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