Penanggalan

A Penanggalan is a vampiric creature whose origins lie in Malaysian folklore.

Description
By day a seemingly-normal human woman, when night falls, the Penanggalan’s head detaches - along with its innards - and flies off in search of prey. It’s favoured meal is the blood of a woman giving birth, and to this effect it will wait on the roof of an adjacent house until the expected birth takes place. At this time, it will extend it’s long, invisible tongue into the house of the victim, from where it will lap up the blood spilt during childbirth. The victim whose blood has been consumed in this way will quickly contract a wasting disease, and die shortly thereafter.

Before the next dawn, the Penanggalan will return to its body, insert its organs and re-attach its head before continuing on as an (apparently) regular human being.

Origins
How Penanggalan come to be the creatures that they are is debated. One version states that they are beautiful women who were granted their good looks by virtue of a demonic pact, whilst others state that they are merely the victims of a devilish curse. Another version claims that they are midwives who broke a pact with Satan to not eat meat for forty days, whilst yet more claim that they are the souls of women who died during childbirth.

Protection Against Penanggalan
Whilst there said to be many methods of protection against one of these creatures, one of the most common is to wrap thorny vines around the perimeter of the house; the Penanggalan’s entrails will become entangled in the spines, and thus become easy prey for those discovering it. They are also said to be deathly afraid of scissors, for obvious reasons.