The Malaysian Maneden

Malaysia is a country that's fraught with vampire myth and folklore, and the Maneden is just one of those. The Maneden was a vampiric creature that lived in the pandanus plant. This plant was lush and green, with very long leaves. This plant is very popular in Malaysian culture, as it's used for flavoring many dishes, and the leaves are sometimes woven together so that they can form a pot for cooking rice. The fact that this plant has always been so widely used in Malaysia was a problem for the people who lived there. For feeling around in the pandanus plant and pulling up its leaves can be very dangerous if you happen to disturb a maneden that's hidden amongst them.

The maneden sits quietly in the leaves of this plant and, this vampire creature is also fairly small, so they are not easily seen. Should someone wish to pick the leaves of the pandanus plant and happen to come across a maneden, the maneden would then attach itself to the person. If it was a man, the maneden would attach itself to the man's elbow and start drinking his blood. If the victim was a woman, it was her nipple that the maneden would suck on.

Fortunately, the maneden was rather easy to get rid of. All one had to do was find something that the bloodthirsty creature could suck on instead. This substitute didn't even have to contain blood, but it did have to have an oily texture to it. For this reason, often nuts were used to trick the creature into attaching itself to something else. If nothing could be found however, the victim would be forced to walk around with the maneden attached to them. And hopefully, they'd find a substitute before the maneden could suck out every drop of blood they had!

- Kate

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