The following podcast may not be for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. In the winding canals of old
Bangkok, where ancient banyan trees cast long shadows across
murky waters, mothers still whisper a story to their
children. It is a tale of love so powerful
that it defied death itself. This legend is so deeply woven
into Thailand's culture that even today people leave
offerings at a shrine hoping to appease the spirit of a woman
who refused to leave the world. This is the story of a woman who
loved her husband so much she couldn't let him go even in
death. Unlike the sugar coated ghost
stories you've heard before, this one breathes terror into
every telling. In this episode we explore one
of Thailand's most infamous ghost stories.
So follow me into the unexplained realms, where the
eternal love may na bleeds through the veil between life
and death. In the late 1800s, in a small
village along the Frock Nong Canal, a young woman named May
Na was deeply in love with her husband, Tiedma.
The loving couple became pregnant and would prepare to
welcome their first child into the world.
During the pregnancy, Tiedma was called away to war.
He was terrified to leave his wife an unborn child, but Mae
Nah promised him she and the baby would be just fine and
waiting for him when he came home.
While away at war tied, Ma's worst nightmare came to life.
Mae Nah went into labor and died during childbirth.
The death, it seems, was merely an inconvenience for her.
When Tied Ma returned, he went to his house but was stopped by
a neighbor. He was not aware his wife and
child had died. The neighbor pleaded with Tied
not to go into the house and explained that unspeakable
things were occurring there. Tied Ma did not believe the
neighbor and pushed past him. When he entered his home, his
wife and newborn baby awaited him.
Everything seemed perfect, too perfect.
MENA watched her husband's smile grow wider as she served his
favorite soup, her ghostly hand steady on the clay bowl she
treasured. Tiedma's joy at seeing their
baby sleeping peacefully begrieved his warm touch, which
she could no longer truly feel. Only in the darkest hours, when
the temple bells toll and her husband is asleep, does she
allow herself to remember the truth that she and their child
slipped away during childbirth, leaving only these pale
imitations behind, bound to earth by a love too strong to
die, The villagers whispered behind cupped hands, their dark
eyes with worry. They saw how Tied Ma's wife
cradled their infant in the candlelight and hummed lullabies
in the dead of night. They knew Tied Ma refused to
see. His beloved wife and child had
died months ago, and the ones who were in his home were
nothing more than shadows, wearing familiar faces and their
feet never quite touching the ground.
One day, Maina was lost in her love of cooking for her beloved
Tidma. She was preparing a dish that
required lime juice. While working with the lime, it
fell and rolled across their wooden floor.
It landed in the gap between the floorboards.
She reached down without thinking.
Her arms elongated like water flowing downward, stretching
impossibly through the floorboards.
Her ghostly fingers went through the wooden floor.
It was only when she heard TI Ma's sharp intake of breath
behind her that she realized her mistake.
In that moment, as natural as breathing had once been, she had
shattered the fragile illusion they both desperately clung to.
May Na turn to face her husband, the lime still clutched in her
ghostly hand, and saw in his horror stricken eyes that the
whisper to truths he denied for so long had finally taken root.
Her love, the force that kept her tethered to this world, was
terrified of her. The night was a shroud of
shadows as Tied Ma ran away from the house, his heart pounding
louder than his footsteps on the dirt path.
He dared not look back, but he could feel May Not's presence
like a chill in the air, relentless and sorrowful.
She was pursuing him. Once sweet and comforting, her
voice now echoed through the darkened village, yelling to
him. You promised always to love me.
When tied, Ma finally gathered the courage to look back.
His blood turned to ice. Where his beautiful Mae Gnaw had
stood was something else entirely, a grotesque apparition
of rage and betrayal. Her once gentle face had twisted
into a mask of fury, and her flowing black hair writhed in a
wind that touched nothing else. Those eyes that had once looked
at him with such tenderness now blazed with supernatural hatred,
glowing with an unholy fire that pierced the darkness.
This was no longer his beloved wife, who had cooked his
favorite meals and sung their baby to sleep.
This was MENA, the vengeful spirit, raw with the pain of
abandonment, her love corrupted into something ancient and
terrible. At that moment, Tiedma
understood why the villagers had trembled when they spoke of her.
Tiedma's breath came in ragged gasps as he sprinted through the
night, his only hope lying in the myths he'd heard whispered.
He stumbled into a Grove of bloomia.
There are leaves brushing against his skin like a
protective cloak. Teeth Ma crouched beneath them,
praying the tails were true, that these humble leaves could
ward off spirits. Mena's pursuit faltered as she
approached the Grove, her form wavering at its edge, her love
tethered to Teeth. Ma.
Yet the leaves held her at Bay, a barrier she could not cross.
Tiedma's heart ached, knowing she was tormented, but survival
drove him onward. He fled through the night, the
temple of Wat Mahabu looming like a beacon of salvation.
With the last of his strength, Tiedma crossed its threshold,
the sacred ground offering refuge from the spectral grasp
of his once beloved wife. MENA lingered at the temple's
edge. In the flickering candlelight of
the temple, Tied Ma fell at the monk's feet, his words tumbling
out between ragged breaths. The monk, wisened and serene
despite the chaos unfolding beyond the temple walls,
listened as tied Ma spoke of his ghostly wife, of love turned to
terror, of a spirit's rage that threatened to consume him whole.
The holy man's eyes grew grave as he understood the magnitude
of what haunted his temple's doorstep.
Drawing upon ancient knowledge passed down through generations
of Buddhist masters, he began his sacred work.
Incense smoke wound through the air like ethereal ropes.
Meyna's furious screams echoed through the temple grounds as
the monk's power was stronger. Her spectral form writhed and
twisted, fighting against powers older than death itself, until
her spirit was trapped in a jar. And so may Na's char found its
way to the royal family, pass from one generation to another
to ensure its safekeeping. Even now, they say, on nights
when the moon hangs full and low, the jar trembles, a
reminder that love, even in death, refuses to be forgotten.
Today, incense smoke curls through the air at Mena's shrine
in FRA Canung, where gifts of flowers pile up like colorful
offerings to a bittersweet love story.
Locals whisper she's still there, watching from behind the
veil. Between worlds, young mothers
come to lay bright flowers and cradle tiny dolls in their arms,
gifts for the ghost who loved too deeply to leave.
Couples kneel to light candles, perhaps seeing in Mayna's tale a
dark mirror of their own devotion.
The shrine keepers tend to these offerings with careful
reverence, knowing that each gift helps maintain the delicate
peace between our world and hers.
Modern Bangkok rises around the shrine like a concrete forest,
But Mayna's story remains unchanged.
Within these sacred walls, each offering is a promise, and each
prayer is a gentle reassurance. We remember your love, honor
your pain, and please rest in peace.
Even in Thailand, some of the most terrifying spirits were
once simply human hearts that loved too much to let go.
The tale of May not echoes through centuries.
It's a reminder that death and love dance and eternal waltz in
the shadows. She experienced a love that was
too enduring to die, but bound by the laws of the afterlife.
Some say the veil between our world and hers grows thinner
each year. Perhaps Mayna's vengeful spirit
still searches for her beloved Teed Ma.
Or perhaps she watches us, waiting for another chance to
find what death so cruelly stole from her.
Sleep well, dear listeners, but if you hear a woman screams in
the dark or catch the scent of rotting flesh masked by sweet
Jasmine, don't look. Some love stories are better
left in the shadows where they belong.