Lang suir

Langsuyar

Malaysian model of a langsuyar
Grouping	Mythical creature
Sub grouping	Vampire, Banshee, Hantu Demon
Mythology	Malay, Indonesian
Country	Malaysia, Indonesia

The langsuyar (pronounced /ˈlɑːŋsjʊə/), also lang suir or langsuir, is a female revenant in Malay and Indonesian mythology. The word is derived from the Malay word for eagle (helang).

A langsuyar is a type of vampire which is the ghost of a woman who dies while pregnant or giving birth. Langsuyars differentiate from the pontianak, which is the ghost of the child who has died at or before birth. She takes the form of a beautiful woman, with long black hair that reaches her ankles, although she may also take the form of a floating woman's head, from which entrails and a spinal column hang. Langsuyars have also been described as having incredibly long nails, hands extending down to her feet, and wearing green robes. She preys on humans, preferring the blood of newborn male children, but also consuming newborn female children.

In his book Malay Magic, Walter William Skeat, an English anthropologist, recorded the origins of the langsuyar myth, as told by Malays in Selangor:

The original Langsuir (whose embodiment is supposed to be a kind of night-owl) is described as being a woman of dazzling beauty, who died from the shock of hearing that her child was stillborn, and had taken the shape of the Pontianak. On hearing this terrible news, she “clapped her hands,” and without further warning “flew whinnying away to a tree, upon which she perched.” She may be known by her robe of green, by her tapering nails of extraordinary length (a mark of beauty), and by the long jet black tresses which she allows to fall down to her ankles—only, alas! (for the truth must be told) in order to conceal the hole in the back of her neck through which she sucks the blood of children! These vampire-like proclivities of hers may, however, be successfully combated if the right means are adopted, for if you are able to catch her, cut short her nails and luxuriant tresses, and stuff them into the hole in her neck, she will become tame and indistinguishable from an ordinary woman, remaining so for years. Cases have been known, indeed, in which she has become a wife and a mother, until she was allowed to dance at a village merry-making, when she at once reverted to her ghostly form, and flew off into the dark and gloomy forest from whence she came.