Chapter 8

''Thesis about the appearance of angels, demons and ghosts, as well as the appearance of vampires in Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (1746)''

Chapter 8

SAGA OF DEATH In the Nordic countries: England and Lapland

Thomas Bartholin said: ancient northern people were convinced, as if the dead were often in his youth, clothed in his body, and gives many examples of this kind. To this he adds that some fought with ghosts, who harassed and insulted people, and about their graves planted trees. Thus, Gretter, apeared after death, decapitated, the bodies of other dead dug their stakes, and then buried in the ground.
Frequently snatched the dead from their graves and burned. So done, for example, with a ghost Gardusom, which found the cause of all miseries occurred during the storm.

According to William Malmesbyuri, the British thought that the evil of the soul after death, return to the bodies of those to whom they belonged in life, through the demon, which gives them the necessary movement.
William Neybrizhsky, who lived in the second half of the XII century, said: man, buried in Berwick, every night rose from the grave and caused great concern whole neighborhood. Another known that he supposedly boasted that he would bother to live as long as it does not burn. For this operation, have chosen ten brave, strong young men who dug it, hacked to pieces and burned at the stake. Once a corpse was dug, one of the gravediggers said: Dead Man's impossible to burn until until he plucked up heart. His proposal was accepted and the corpse thrown into the fire, turned into ash and was not more.

The ancient pagans believed that the dead bodies in general are deprived of rest and not protected by spells as long as they are not affected by the flame or rot in the ground.
Laplander tell about the many ghosts, who were the local inhabitants against their will, forced them to speak and eat with them. When Laplander have made sure that the souls of deceased relatives worried about them, then burned the body, believing that the only way they can get rid of troublesome visitors. Laplander generally were of the opinion that the souls of the dead are dangerous for living as long as they do not pass into other bodies. Demons and ghosts wandering around the mountains, rocks, lakes and rivers in Lapland, paid homage to the same respect, what the Romans paid homage fawn, forest gods, nymphs and tritons.

Thus, we find the instructions on the dead, who after the burial back to life, even before the XII century and in other countries, especially the northern ones. However, these sagas are too far from our subject: Vampires, of which we have referred, almost have nothing to do with all this.