Krasue

The krasue is a night spirit of Thai, Lao and Khmer folklore: a woman’s head, usually young and fair-faced, that detaches and floats through the dark with its heart, stomach and intestines hanging below, often with a faint green or red glow. By day she looks like an ordinary villager. Cambodia has the ahp, Laos the kasu, and Malay lore the related penanggalan; the Philippine manananggal is a cousin.

Origin stories vary. In Thai tradition a woman who sinned in a past life is reborn as a spirit who must eat rotten or raw food; in other accounts a failed black-magic spell separates her head from her body. She hunts for blood, carrion, raw meat and even faeces, and must rejoin her body before dawn, so villagers hide or damage it, plant thorny hedges to snag the entrails, and bury afterbirth deep in Cambodia.

Reports continue into the 21st century. A 2008 CCTV clip from a factory in Pathum Thani went viral and was found by a Chulalongkorn University scientist to show light reflecting off wet ground. In 2014, thousands of teenagers went to the Phachi district to see lights in rice fields; the landowner said bird-scaring lanterns caused them. A 2017 viral ‘krasue’ video proved to be a drone with a face, and the 2015 chicken deaths in Ayutthaya were put down to dogs.

Anthropologists see the krasue as a warning about taboo and as a figure of stigma for women considered strange or wicked. The Thai Royal Academy even lists krasue-related idioms, and a Chonburi village renamed itself to avoid the name.

A woman’s floating head with a long throat, glowing and trailing intestines, heart and stomach; a green or red light is often reported.

Rice fields, village edges and dark trackways at night, often near homes with pregnant women or new births.

The krasue is a staple of Thai horror cinema from the 1970s, including Inhuman Kiss (2019), as well as of TV dramas and Cambodian film.