You probably know what winnows are. They are woven of bamboo, and are shaped like big dust pans. Farmers use them to separate out chaff and other things that are mixed in with the rice they harvest. Haven't you ever seen a ffarmer's wife go to a windy spot and shake a big dustpan up and down, tossing the rice up and catching what falls back down? People who live in the country know all about this sort of thing, since that's where winnows are used. The idea is that the light chaff is blown away by the wind, and only the heavy rice remains on the winnow.
Incidentally, these winnows are always made with a piece of wood shaped like a horseshoe. That forms the outer rim of the winnow. But since the wood grows straight, it has to be bent into shape. To bend it, it is warmed over a fire.
So, Hikotaro the winnow maker built a fire deep in the mountains, and was bending winnow rims. Then a yamauba came along, and said, "Oh, it's cold, it's cold." She came up to Hikotaro's fire.
Hikotaro saw the ferocious yamauba, he thought, "Oh no! It's a yamauba! Maybe I can blow ashes on her."
Right away the yamauba said, "Hikotaro, you're planning to throw ashes on me."
Hikotaro thought to himself, "This is terrible. But the hatchet I just bought cuts very well. Maybe I can hack the yamauba up with that."
This time the yamauba said, "Hikotaro, you're planning to hack me up with a hatchet."
Realizing that she actually could understand his thoughts perfectly, Hikotaro thought, "This is really terrible. At this rate, it looks like I really will be eaten by this monster!" The yamauba again said just what Hikotaro was thinking.
Everything he thought, she would say until until he grew tired of the game and tried not to think of anything. He just sat silent, putting all his effort into heating the wood for the winnow rim over the fire. But his hands grew stiff from holding the bowed wood, and suddenly his hand accidentally slipped off one end of the wood. That end snapped open like a spring and knocked ashes all over the yamauba.
Covered with ash, the yamauba said, "Hikotaro, you have beaten me. You're a man who can take action without thinking it out in his heart." She escaped into a bamboo thicket and rustled away. A few moments later there was groaning from the middle of the thicket. Hikotaro went to see, and found that the yamauba had collapsed in pain. Hikotaro was terrified; he quickly picked up his tools and fled back to his home.