The Wewe Gombel

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This horrifying entity with the super-long boobs is known among Javanese legend as the Wewe Gombel. Her tale is a tragic one, and when it comes to scary-looking ghosts and monsters of eastern lore, she’s actually pretty misunderstood. 

The Wewe Gombel myth comes from the Semarang, the capital of Java Province in Indonesia. As the story goes, there was a couple living in the village of Bukit Gombel. After years of marriage failed to produce a child, the husband lost interest in his wife, and began neglecting her. After finding him with another woman, the wife killed her husband in a fit of rage. Shortly after, she committed suicide.

Since she died by her own hand with so much rage and hatred inside, her vengeful spirit was doomed to come back as the ghost or demon known as the Wewe Gombel. This ghost lives in a nest, located in the Arenga pinnata palm tree. 

At night, the Wewe Gombel goes out in search of children to kidnap, to make up for the children she was never able to bear in life. Although this tale is largely told to children to scare them into staying out of trouble, legend states that the Wewe Gombel only kidnaps children who are abused or neglected by their parents.  She tucks the child under her gigantic breasts, takes them back to her palm tree nest and lovingly takes care of them. She returns the children if and when the abusive, neglectful parents change their ways. Taking in abused and/or neglected children and giving them a loving home, tucked safely under her breasts in a palm tree nest, hardly sounds like something an evil or demonic spirit would do—especially since she’s willing to return the child to its parents IF they can prove they’ve changed their ways. But, if you’re concerned that your children will be spirited away by the Wewe Gombel, make sure you keep them inside at night!