I wrote about the Krasue on Medium recently, but it is actually an excerpt from my short book about Thailand’s spooky folklore:
Haunted Thailand: Ghosts and Spirits in the Land of Smiles
Years ago, I was on holiday in Thailand and was flicking through the local TV channels in my hotel room. It was late at night and there was a low-budget horror film on – which is something I enjoy in all languages. My Thai wasn’t great, but it didn’t need to be, as the plot was pretty straightforward.
I saw a pretty Thai woman in a village in what looked like the past. While others cowered in horror, her head detached from her body with entrails dangling below. The lady grinned and then started to chase some terrified villagers around. It was fun, but I fell asleep halfway through and then dozed off.
Years later, around 2006, I was living in Bangkok and working as a journalist. My editor told me to write about some of the ghosts, spirits, and demons. While researching, I came across the Krasue and realised this was the creature I had seen all those years before. The article led me down a fascinating path and I ended up writing a short book about it.
Along with a story about a ghost called Mae Nak, the Krasue is one of the most popular and tales in Thailand and the surrounding region. Instead of trying to explain more here, here is an extract from the book. Enjoy…
The terrifying and unpleasant Krasue
A Krasue, sometimes called Pii Krasue, is a spirit that haunts Southeast Asia. It has also been the subject of numerous films, and while there is occasionally a bit of backstory, generally speaking, any woman can become a Krasue if they aren’t careful. The Krasue is the Thai moniker, but they can be found throughout Southeast Asia under a variety of names, including Ahp in Cambodia and Kasu in Laos, with versions also appearing in the folklore of Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The Krasue is fabulously gory, consisting of a floating head with internal organs dangling below. They usually manifest themselves as attractive young women with bloody hanging innards and float about occasionally glowing a bit. Sometimes, they even have fangs like a vampire.
If the floating head of a hot Asian woman with pointed teeth, a strange glow and gory hanging innards isn’t disturbing enough, then it is time to look at their diet.
A Krasue’s unpleasant dinner
In Thai folklore, the Krasue is a legendary creature believed to be the result of a cursed individual who committed numerous sins during their lifetime. Upon death, they are cursed to become a Krasue, forever plagued by insatiable hunger. They subsist on a disturbing range of sustenance, such as discarded or spoiled food, but it is the unsettling craving for blood and unborn infants that truly sets them apart.
During the day, they look like an ordinary woman, but at night, they need to satisfy their extreme gluttony. Unleashing her true form, she detaches her head and embarks on a nocturnal hunting spree. Ideally, Krasue’s prefer blood and raw flesh, but when desperate, they will eat carrion and even faeces. They may also attack cattle and poultry. When a Krasue has finished one of their delightful dinners, they will wipe their mouths on any available bits of cloth or clothing they find hanging around. Consequently, Thai villagers never leave clothes out overnight to avoid their finest threads getting smeared with blood – or worse.
Most disturbing of all cravings is the Krasue’s predilection for preying on women just before or after childbirth. In addition to all the other unpleasant attributes, a Krasue has a long, thin, probing tongue that it can insert into a lady’s nether regions to reach the fetus or placenta. If a Thai lady in the countryside gets an infection or birth-related problem, it is often blamed on a Krasue. Sometimes, it is believed that the Krasue can even suck a baby out and devour it.
How to protect against or kill a Krasue
So a Krasue is not a nice thing to have floating around, especially if pregnant. But, like a lot of other transforming unpleasant creatures of myth, it has a couple of weaknesses.
The first is the dangling innards. When a pregnant woman is near to giving birth, a common safety precaution is to surround the house with pointy objects like thorns, or bamboo spikes. Krasues are understandably conscious that while being able to fly is pretty handy, having your innards dangling below can leave you a tad vulnerable. Intestines can snag on things pretty easily, and a Krasue is, therefore wary if they see something sharp.
It is also possible to kill a Krasue with a couple of lucky machete chops that sever the entrails from the head – although this is obviously a bit of a risky option. A slightly safer way to get rid of the revolting thing, is look to its other weakness. Its body.
As mentioned earlier, during the day a Krasue looks mostly like a normal woman. But even then, she’ll have a couple of aspects that give her away. The first is they look knackered all the time. Presumably due to a lack of sleep. The second is that her eyes don’t show the reflection of whomever she is looking at. So to avoid detection, a Krasue will never look anyone in the eye.
There is also the belief that if a Krasue had wiped its mouth on on some cloth and stained it, boiling the fabric would cause the creature’s mouth to burn. This would consequently lead to them turning up and offering to buy the material. At this point, most practical Thais will sell at whatever price is proffered – they have identified the Krasue, and can follow her.
When dinner time approaches and the head has flown off to have some disgusting food, the body is vulnerable until the Krasue returns the following dawn and reattaches. So someone had successfully manages to follow the Krasue, waited and found the headless body, they can either destroy it or simply hide it. In the morning, the Krasue will have no body to rejoin and will consequently die a horrible death.
So, as is often the case, they are a menace that is ideally dealt with by villagers wielding pitchforks, machetes, and flaming torches.
However, sometimes, if they are left alone, they will eventually die. Unfortunately, they don’t die peacefully or particularly easily. When they’re close to death, a Krasue will spit into another woman’s mouth, turning the poor victim into a Krasue, and allowing the original to die in peace. If an open mouthed lady isn’t available, then spitting into a cat’s mouth works just as well. I couldn’t find any mention of what happens to the poor cat.
A Krahang or Kahang
Krahang are often found hanging around with Krasues – or at least frequenting similar areas. Krahangs are male ghosts that take the significantly less terrifying form of a man clad in a loincloth. Unlike the Krasue, which floats ominously around with glowing gory entrails, a Krahang flaps about using two large Kradong (rice baskets) to fly. Occasionally they’ll also use a slightly more dignified Sak Tam Khao – a long wooden pestle for manually pounding rice. There are older stories of Krahangs that look like a man but with feathers and the tail of a bird.
Both Krahangs and Krasues have appeared in dozens of films and TV shows, from horrors to comedy. As you may imagine from their description, the Krahangs are predominantly in the more amusing features.
You can read lots more ghostly goings on in Haunted Thailand: Ghosts and spirits in the Land of Smiles. (That’s not an affiliate link.)
