Thailand's Most Famous Ghost Is A Classic Tale Of Love And Murder
A lady known as Mae Nak, or Nang Nak, is the best-known ghost and ghost story in Thailand. It's a great tale.
Mae Nak is a classic tale of love, loss, and a rampaging murderous spirit. It has been made into a score of movies in a surprising variety of genres, including horror, gothic romance, comedy, animation, opera and even, apparently, porn. A recent film version called Phi Mak Phra Khanongthat came out in 2013 became, at the time of release, the highest-grossing Thai movie of all time. It is very unlikely to be the last.
The tale of Mae Nak and all that follows is allegedly based on true events.
The Story of Mae Nak
The story begins in the latter half of the 19th Century with an idyllic young couple: a lady called Nak and her husband Mak. They lived in a stilted house on the shores of a river in a village in the area of Phra Khanong. A district that is now very much inside Bangkok but was then remote and peaceful.
Everything was going great for the young newlyweds, and they were soon blessed when Nak discovered she was pregnant. Unfortunately, the Kingdom of Siam at that time was at war, and Mak was drafted into the army before the birth. He leaves his pregnant young wife and heads off to battle, where he is severely wounded. While he is recuperating elsewhere, Nak comes to term. It is a complicated and painful birth that tragically kills both Nak and her child.
This is where things get interesting. Nak was a pretty determined lady, and she didn’t see why the death of her baby boy, or herself, should get in the way of a good marriage and a happy home. So, she returns as a ghost with the cunning plan of pretending that nothing happened.
When Mak returns, having recovered from his wounds, he finds his loving wife and new son waiting for him. The other villagers, who knew that Nak and her baby had died in childbirth, are a little freaked out by the whole living arrangement and somewhat stand-offish with the poor, oblivious Mak.
Nak was presumably able to take a pretty convincing corporeal form, given that her husband hadn’t seen her for months and presumably had some ‘needs’. Time passed, and he remained blissfully unaware that his wife and kid were ghosts. The villagers, slightly taken aback that the dead woman was somehow pulling the deception off, felt that something needed to be done. One of Mak’s mates decided it was time to tell him the macabre and distressing truth. But before he could spill the beans, Nak killed him. She then murdered anyone else who was foolish enough to think about ruining their happy family unit.
Eventually, however, even Mak started to notice that something weird was afoot. His suspicions were finally confirmed when Nak was preparing dinner and dropped a bit of lemon that fell through a gap in the floor. Not realising her husband was around, she took the handy ghostly option of simply extending her arm and reaching through the floor to pick it up. When Mak saw this, his blood, understandably, went cold. Probably close to involuntarily doing so anyway, he said he needed to pop outside to have a pee.
The other villagers, who had known Nak was a ghost the whole time but were a bit cautious, what with all the murders, were easy to convince that something needed to be done. Like villagers in folklore tales the world over, they grabbed some flaming torches, teamed up with Mak, and burned the house down. The big flaw in this plan was an obvious one. Nak was a ghost, and burning her house down just served to really annoy her.
Mak finally did something sensible and fled to a monastery. Ghosts aren’t keen on sacred ground and so he at least was safe - which was great for him but not so much for everyone else who had to deal with the angry, homicidal phantasm of a woman scorned. The ghost of Nak went on a murderous rampage, killing anyone she thought was getting between her and her husband and generally blaming everyone for ruining her domestic bliss.
The villagers hurriedly contacted a powerful ghost-busting monk who performed an exorcism and managed to trap and confine Nak’s spirit in a clay pot, which he then chucked into the river. Job done.
At least for a bit. There are a number of versions of what happened next, but they all end up with Nak escaping. A prison consisting of a clay pot in a river where people fish for a living was not exactly a long-term solution after all.
The crazed ethereal killing machine was back, and this time, she had ‘levelled up’. No one in the local area had the power to stop her. A legendary monk, Somdet Phra Phuttachan, was finally able to save the day. He managed to confine Nak’s spirit to her own forehead bone and then bound that to his waistband. Finally, Nak was at rest, and the waistband is now a relic that is rumoured to reside with Thailand’s Royal Family.
There are a few versions of what happened to Mak, but he generally comes out ok. The two most popular are: he becomes a monk and lives out his life in a temple — wise and understandable — and the other is that he meets someone else and starts a new family — which is brave, to say the least.
An interesting possible alternate take
There is a curious additional story about Nak and her tale that has been proposed by a Thai historian called Anek Nawikamul. The historian was researching the traditional story when he came across an article in the Siam Praphet newspaper dating from 1899. The article claimed that the legend of Mae Nak was based on a lady in Phra Khanong (also called Nak) who was the daughter of a local dignitary. This lady had died while pregnant but, crucially, after already having had a son. According to this version, the son was a bit paranoid that his dad might remarry and split his inheritance with a new wife. So he invented the ghost story and even went as far as dressing up in women’s clothing and chucking stones at passing boats.
Given that the traditional telling of Mae Nak is supposedly based on true events, no one knows if this alternate version is even based on the same Nak. Thai nicknames can be common and in this version, the husband is called Chum. The traditional version is certainly more interesting.
The Mae Nak Shrine
Given the disturbing and grisly events surrounding Mae Nak, it might be surprising that she now has a shrine dedicated to her next to Wat Mahabut, a large temple in Phra Khanong. The Thai people are a forgiving bunch and they regularly visit the shrine that features a statue of Nak and her son. Visitors give an offering in return for a bit of help. Given the events of what happened, it is probably not too surprising that the main requests are from women asking for an easy childbirth or that their husbands aren’t conscripted into the army.
The above is an excerpt from a short book I wrote called Haunted Thailand: Ghosts and Spirits in the Land of Smiles. I worked as a journalist in Thailand and was commissioned to write an article about Thai ghosts. I found the topic so fascinating it grew into a book.
I hope you enjoyed it.