Foolhudhigu Handi

A creature was sitting among the graves, using a human skull to scoop sand and mud over its own body.

Aiminabi saw it at sundown when she went to the well beside the mosque graveyard. The thing was wrapped in its own long umbilical cord. It was a handi, one of the dangerous supernatural beings in Maldivian folklore, but there was no mistaking this one for anything human.

She dropped the water pot.

The sound gave her away.

Aiminabi ran home. That night the handi followed. It circled the hut and shook it while demanding to know whether she had seen what it was doing at the graveyard.

Aiminabi said she had seen nothing.

The creature left.

The following night, it came back and asked again. She gave the same answer.

By the third night, Hassan Thakuru had returned from the island where he had been working. Aiminabi told him what had happened, and they waited for the handi together.

It came to the hut again.

This time Aiminabi admitted that she had seen it among the graves, bathing itself with mud and sand scooped in a human skull.

The handi flew into a rage.

It found a hole in the hut and began pushing its long cord through the opening. Hassan Thakuru was waiting inside. He seized the cord and pulled.

More of it came through.

He kept pulling until he reached its base.

Then he cut it with a hatchet.

Aiminabi took chilli paste and smeared it over the wound.

The handi ran from the house screaming.

In the version recorded by Xavier Romero-Frias, it was never seen again.