The Mae Nak Phra Khanong Ghost Tradition in Early Thai Print Culture

Record summary

Mae Nak Phra Khanong is a Thai ghost tradition about a deceased woman whose attachment to her husband reportedly produced terrifying encounters after childbirth and death. The story circulated through oral performance, temple associations, printed retellings, and later cinema, where it became one of Thailand’s best-known supernatural narratives. It matters comparatively because the dangerous dead, protective monks, and ritual resolution occupy a space between haunting, possession, and ancestor belief. The underlying historical episode is not independently established, and versions before 1946 must be distinguished from later literary and film elaborations.