Aswang vs Grandpa

This is a legend in my family. It's the story of how my grandfather outwitted the local 'aswang'...

At one point, my grandfather worked late shifts as a policeman, often returning home at 2 or 3 in the morning, walking along the lonely country paths. One night, after a long shift, he headed home accompanied only by the sounds of the crickets, the soft wind rustling in the high grass and the full moon. As he rounded the bend that led him home, he saw a silhouette standing before him. It was a figure of a woman but her hair was standing up, as if electrified. He drew closer and saw that it was a female vampire, her eyes were blood red and fangs hung below her lips.

She was about to descend upon him.

What saved him was his quick thinking. He realized that it was a nearby neighbor (neighbors often were a few miles apart), and so he hailed her. "Maria! Ano ng yari! (What happened?) Why are you out this late? Are you sick? Your eyes are red and you need to comb your hair! With those magic words, vanity took hold and she sheepishly smiled, apologized and headed home.

I love that story.

Man Meets Mermaid

Mom told us this story when we were kids...

In her village, long before she was born, a fisherman caught a mermaid in his net. The mermaid begged to be freed but the man thought that she would make him rich! And so, for a price, he placed her on display for the whole village to see. But each day a fishy smell would pervade the entire village until no one could stand it anymore and no one would go near the display. Finally, when the fisherman realized that she wouldn't bring in a profit he released her back into the ocean, and decided to go back making a living by fishing.

No one knows what happened to the fisherman because the day the mermaid was released his boat was found, floating offshore, but the fisherman was never seen again.

Another version of this story says that the mermaid cried and cried but the town refused to free her, and so she told them that her father, the great king of the sea, would bring forth a typhoon and floods that would devastate the village. They didn't heed her and overnight the sea boiled up, flooding the roads and pulling houses, women, men, children, and livestock into its depths. Those who survived freed the mermaid, promising never to imprison her kind again.

Manananggal

Growing up my mom would tell us stories about aswangs and manananggals. Manananggals are these women monsters who could separate their bodies and go flying around, at night, looking for pregnant women from whom they could eat their babies through proboscis-like tongues.

The story went that one particular monster flew to an unsuspecting mother-to-be's roof, made a hole through the hut's top and slowly dropped her tongue (growing longer and thinner) until it reached the woman's bellybutton. The woman, however, woke up and saw the elongated tongue, grabbed it and quickly tied a knot to prevent the creature from escaping. The creature was stuck there and could not return to its other half before the sun came up and died.

I was always curious about the other half of her body. Did she leave it just anywhere? What if she needed to pee? What if an animal found it? I was told that if you sprinkle salt on the other half then the creature would die, but who leaves it laying around for another person to find?