Jawnomicon

Krasue

Also called Phi Krasue, Krahsue.

In Thai folklore, the Krasue is a malevolent spirit that appears as a woman's disembodied floating head trailing its own internal organs beneath it, hunting at night for blood, raw flesh, and carrion.

At a glance

Tradition
Thai folklore
Region
Thailand (place of origin)Southeast Asia (habitat)
Kind
Southeast Asian vampiric ghost
Trait family
The False Hosts

Near this figure

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Form

  • Floating detached head with organs
    why

    The Krasue is one of the most iconic figures in Thai horror folklore: a woman's head that detaches from its body at night, floating through the dark with its trachea, esophagus, and viscera dangling and glowing faintly beneath it.

  • Extending tongue attack
    why

    in some tellings it feeds by extending a long tongue-like proboscis into its victim.

  • Cursed into monstrous form
    why

    a woman cursed to a hunger she cannot fully control.

Behaviour

  • Conceals affliction behind ordinary daytime self
    why

    By day it is said to appear as an ordinary woman, indistinguishable from her neighbors, with the affliction sometimes described as hereditary, passed down through a family line, or acquired through the practice or failure of certain black magic and taboo-breaking.

  • Preys on pregnant women
    why

    Accounts describe the Krasue hunting for raw meat, carrion, or the blood and entrails of animals, and it is especially associated with preying on pregnant women, drawn to the blood and afterbirth of childbirth; in some tellings it feeds by extending a long tongue-like proboscis into its victim.

  • Returns nightly to grave by dawn
    why

    The Krasue must return to reunite with its body before sunrise; some tellings hold that if its body is discovered, moved, or destroyed while the head is out hunting, the head is left to wander forever unable to rejoin it.

  • Thorny barrier ward
    why

    Protective countermeasures recur across tellings: householders are said to ring a home with thorny bamboo, spiked plants, or scattered needles to snag the trailing entrails and bar the Krasue's approach, and villages have historically treated unexplained stillbirths, livestock deaths, or a woman's reclusive nighttime habits as signs of a Krasue in their midst.

Sight and sound

Offensive powers

  • Blood drain
    why

    in some tellings it feeds by extending a long tongue-like proboscis into its victim.

Utility powers

  • Detached head flight
    why

    a woman's head that detaches from its body at night, floating through the dark with its trachea, esophagus, and viscera dangling and glowing faintly beneath it

  • Shapeshifting
    why

    By day it is said to appear as an ordinary woman, indistinguishable from her neighbors, with the affliction sometimes described as hereditary, passed down through a family line, or acquired through the practice or failure of certain black magic and taboo-breaking.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.