Jorōgumo

Jorōgumo (Japanese Kanji: 絡新婦, Hiragana: じょろうぐも) is a type of Yōkai, a creature, ghost or goblin of Japanese folklore. According to some stories, a Jorōgumo is a spider that can change its appearance into that of a seductive woman.

In Japanese Kanji, Jorōgumo is written as "絡新婦" (literally meaning "binding bride") or "女郎蜘蛛" (literally meaning "woman spider"). Jorōgumo can also refer to some species of spiders, but in casual use it can refer to the Nephila and Argiope spiders. Japanese-speaking entomologists use the katakana form of Jorōgumo () to refer, exclusively, to the spider species Nephila clavata.

The Edo period legend has it that a beautiful woman would entice a man into a quiet shack and begin to play a biwa, a type of Japanese lute. While the victim would be distracted by the sound of the instrument, she binds her victim in spider silk threads in order to devour the unsuspecting person as her next meal.

According to legend, when a spider turns 400 years old, it gains magical powers. Stories of Jorōgumo can be found in Edo period works, such as "Taihei-Hyakumonogatari" (太平百物語) and "Tonoigusa" (宿直草). In many of these stories, Jorōgumo changes its appearance into a beautiful woman to ask a samurai to marry her, or takes the form of a young woman carrying a baby (which may turn out to be a spider's eggsack).

Drawings, such as the one in Toriyama Sekien's book Gazu Hyakki Yakō, depicts Jorōgumo as a half-woman/half-spider surrounded by her spider children.

...
Wikipedia