Penanggalan

The Penanggalan is one of the most distinctive vampiric beings in Southeast Asian tradition, documented in Malaysian, Thai, and Cambodian folklore. It is a detached head with its stomach and intestines hanging below it, flying through the night. The organs are described as glowing faintly. It was believed to be a midwife who had made a pact with the devil or a woman who died violently. It soaked its intestines in vinegar to shrink them enough to fit back inside the body by dawn.

A severed head with the stomach and intestines dangling below it, faintly luminous. It smells of vinegar. It is said to rest in the day in a body that appears normal (or sometimes in a jar of vinegar). It moves through the air at night with its trailing organs.

Could enter homes through gaps and crevices. Fed on the blood of women in labor and of newborns. Its trailing intestines contaminated anything they touched, causing disease. Its presence near a birthing house was sufficient to cause miscarriage.