Loogaroo

The Loogaroo is a monster found in Caribbean mythology.

According to the myth, the Loogaroo is an old woman who is in league with the Devil. She will have magical abilities only if she gives the Devil blood every night. She tries to give him blood of other creatures, or else he will take her own blood, causing her to die.

The Loogaroo can leave its own skin (usually under a "Devil Tree," a silk cotton tree) and turn into a flame or blue ball of bright light that haunts the night searching for blood to meet the terms of her deal. After she has collected enough blood she can return to her skin and retake human form.

This creature is apparently compulsive and must stop to count grains of sand spread upon the ground. So, a defence against her was to leave a pile of rice or sand near your front door. Hopefully, the creature would take so long to count it all that the sun would eventually return with the coming of morning. By that time the Loogaroo would have to return to her skin without making an attack. In some tales of the Loogaroo, her skin can be taken away from the Devil Tree so that she cannot find it when she returns.