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There are also some strange old superstitions about women's hair.

The myth of Medusa has many a counterpart in Japanese folk-lore: the
subject of such tales being always some wondrously beautiful girl, whose
hair turns to snakes only at night; and who is discovered at last to be
either a dragon or a dragon's daughter. But in ancient times it was
believed that the hair of any young woman might, under certain trying
circumstances, change into serpents. For instance: under the influence
of long-repressed jealousy.

There were many men of wealth who, in the days of Old Japan, kept their
concubines (mekake or aisho) under the same roof with their legitimate
wives (okusama). And it is told that, although the severest patriarchal
discipline might compel the mekake and the okusama to live together in
perfect seeming harmony by day, their secret hate would reveal itself by
night in the transformation of their hair. The long black tresses of
each would uncoil and hiss and strive to devour those of the other--and
even the mirrors of the sleepers would dash themselves together--for,
saith an ancient proverb, kagami onna-no tamashii--'a Mirror is the Soul
of a Woman.' [7] And there is a famous tradition of one Kato Sayemon
Shigenji, who beheld in the night the hair of his wife and the hair of
his concubine, changed into vipers, writhing together and hissing and
biting. Then Kato Sayemon grieved much for that secret bitterness of
hatred which thus existed through his fault; and he shaved his head and
became a priest in the great Buddhist monastery of Koya-San, where he
dwelt until the day of his death under the name of Karukaya.