The Jorogumo: The Spider Woman of Japan
In the gorges of Japan there hangs, every autumn, a spider of unsettling beauty: the jorō spider, banded in gold and steel-blue, queen of a web that can span a mountain path. Japanese tradition looked at her long enough, and thought about her habits carefully enough, to arrive at a conclusion both logical and terrifying: a creature that weaves so well, waits so patiently, and wraps its lovers so fatally would, given time, learn to hunt bigger game. The jorōgumo — the name is written "entangling bride" or, less politely, "whore spider" — is what she becomes: a spider that, upon reaching four hundred years of age, gains magical power and the ability to take the form of a stunningly beautiful woman. In that form she keeps house in waterfalls, ruined temples, and empty mountain dwellings; she plays the lute to lure young men in from the road; she binds them in silk that no blade will cut; and she feeds on them at her leisure, patiently, as spiders feed. She is one of ...