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Ghost Stories From Around The World

The popobawa is a shape-shifting demon that stalks the Tanzanian island of Pemba. (Phoebe Boswell/NPR)
The popobawa is a shape-shifting demon that stalks the Tanzanian island of Pemba. (Phoebe Boswell/NPR)

Are you afraid of ghosts, vampires and witches? What about Hanako-san, a little girl who waits to drag her victims to hell in the third stall of the third-floor bathroom of schools in Japan? There’s also La Llorona, a woman who drowned her children then herself and roams around, wailing in anguish.

Gene Demby, lead blogger at NPR’s Code Switch, put out a call to readers, asking what ghost stories and folktales they grew up with in their own traditions. He talks to Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson about the responses he received, detailing scary creatures from around the world.

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Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.