phi seua samut (ผีเสื้อสมุทร)

Thai. ‘Marine butterfly’ or ‘sea ogre’. A class of demons living in water. A phi seua samut appears in the Ramakien as an ogress who guards the ocean around the island of Langka and is killed by Hanuman. Another one occurs in the Phra Aphaimanih story, where she is referred to as Nang Phi Seua Samut (fig.) and has a son with Phra Aphaimanih (fig.), named Sin Samut (fig.), and who as their mutual son is depicted as half-ogre half-human with yak-like teeth. Nang Phi Seua Samut is depicted on the fourth of a series of eight Thai postage stamps issued in 2009 to publicize the story of Phra Aphaimanih as a major literary work of the Rattanakosin Era (fig.). Phi Seua Samut Island in the Chao Phraya River, in the vicinity of the river's estuary (fig.) in Samut Prakan and home to the original 1893  Chulachomklao Fortress (fig.), is named after this class of sea ogres. 回