THE LIGHTS OF CHANGKAT ASAH. 121 



they would play round one another as though in 

 doubt which way to take, and then a current of 

 air would come eddying round the hill and catch 

 them up and hurry them out of sight. When the 

 wind dropped and there was perfect calm, six or 

 eight would rise, moving in and out among one 

 another as if in some game, and mount up through 

 the air, playing and dancing until they became small 

 bright specks, then slowly sink, revolving and inter- 

 lacing, until again a breeze would spring up and 

 send them flying helter-skelter up or down the river. 

 We noticed that the lights as they moved were not 

 quite round, but slightly pear-shaped. Thus one ris- 

 ing would have a tapering tail below it, making its 

 outline something like that of a balloon with a car, 

 and one falling would have the tail above it. I 

 imagine that this shape is caused by the pressure 

 of the air upon the moving body. Thinking of this 

 curious shape, I realised what we were watching. The 

 dancing and flying lights were the spooks known as 

 penanggal. The Malays believe that sometimes when 

 a woman dies in childbirth she becomes a penanggal, 

 and that at night her head, with a short part of an 

 entrail, breaks from the grave and flies through the 

 country, flame-coloured and with open mouth, to suck 

 the blood and life of any man who may fall within 

 its power. "That which is detached," is the literal 

 meaning of the word. The head with its gruesome 

 appendage can only detach itself at night-time, and 

 must return to the grave before daybreak ; and if it 

 should lose its way, or become caught in any thicket 

 so that it is overtaken by the light of day, there is 



