As long as they stay in the trees, you have nothing to worry about.

The spirits are called Abiku, and they tend to lurk in the branches of baobab and Iroko trees

throughout Nigeria. At least, that's where they hang out when they aren't possessing a human host,

a very tiny human host. The word Abiku, you see, translates to none other than predestined to death.

According to Nigerian legend,

these spirits belong to children who are doomed to die young. And if that weren't tragic enough,

they are said to target the same mothers again and again, becoming the soul of each new baby

she bears, remorselessly forcing her to lose child after child.

A family might think that they've escaped, might have a son or daughter who lives past infancy,

then into childhood and toward their teen years, only for the Abiku to take them on their 13th birthday.

It's hard to imagine a crueller kind of monster.

But according to some contemporary analyses, Abiku legends do serve a purpose beyond the misery.

It's possible that the superstition developed to help families make sense of genetic illnesses,

such as sickle cell disease, which could cause multiple premature deaths within the same family line.

And they aren't alone.

From Scottish changelings to the Filipino Chianak,

every culture has its own folklore explaining why a child might be taken before their time. And the truth is, while these stories may be about children,

they really exist to help adults process something too terrible

to name, which leaves us with a question. When death comes calling, what stories are the children

telling? I'm Aaron Manke, and this is lore.

They are the first poems that we hear.

Long before we can read or write, tales of itsy-bitsy spiders

...