What is "mullo"

n. (alternative form of mulo English)

The term Mullo may refer to:

• Mullo (vampire), a type of vampire in Roma folklore
• Mullo (god), in Celtic mythology
• 5164 Mullo, an asteroid - see List of minor planets: 5001–6000

Mullo (Muli: female, Mulo: male) is an undead, revenant, or vampire of Roma folklore. 'Mullo' means 'one who is dead'.

A mullo is created when a person dies suddenly of some unnatural cause or the person did not have proper funeral rites. A mullo is described as having white clothes, hair that reaches to their feet, and one physical oddity (a trait which varies from geographic region to region). A mullo's existence is in seeking out people it did not like in life and harassing that person.

Mullo are believed to return and do malicious things and/or attack by strangling and suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or hadn't properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper).

To get rid of a vampire people would hire a Dhampir (the son of a vampire and his widow) to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, Romani people drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating the corpse, or burning it.

Mullo is a Celtic god. He is known from inscriptions and is associated with the god Mars in the form of Mars Mullo.

The cult of the god was popular in northern and north-western Gaul, particular in Brittany and Normandy. The word may denote an association with horses or mules (it is the Latin word for "mule").

Mars Mullo had a circular temple at Craon in the Mayenne, situated on a hillock commanding a confluence of two rivers. An inscription at Nantes reflects the presence of a shrine there. An important cult centre must have existed at Rennes, the tribal capital of the Redones: here inscriptions refer to the onetime presence of statues and to the existence of an official public cult. Town magistrates were instrumental in setting up urban sanctuaries to Mullo in the 2nd Century AD. At Allonnes, Sarthe a shrine was set up to Mars Mullo as a healer of afflictions of the eye. His importance is suggested by his link with Augustus on a dedicatory inscription. Pilgrims visited the shrine offered numerous coins to the god, along with votive images of the afflicted parts of their bodies, the eye problems clearly manifest.