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Illustration of Kirkonväki
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Kirkonväki

Beste izen batzuk: kirkkomaanväki, kalmanväki, churchyard folk, manalaiset

Kirkonväki is the Finnish name for the dead as a body, the population of the churchyard acting together. Finnish legend gives them corporeal form, as a congregation of decaying corpses that fills the church at night and mauls any living intruder, though everyday belief treated them more as an invisible, foul-smelling force. They enforced respect for graves and proper burial and could be weaponised by cunning folk. They are the closest thing in Finnish tradition to a horde of the walking dead.1

Borrokan jarri
Lehen erregistroa
1551
Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s
Jatorria
Finnish
Finlandia
Zerk eragiten duen
Bestelakoak
The collective dead of a churchyard, active as a crowd around the church and around any unburied corpse.
Nola bihurtzen zaren bat
The dead buried in the parish churchyard.
Nola mugitzen den
Aldakorra
In legends they gather in the church at night as a solid crowd; in personal accounts they pass as a swarm of small figures in the air.
Adimena
Adimen pixka bat
Puntu ahulak
  • precautions when crossing churchyard boundaries
  • leaving something behind: in one legend a man escapes by dropping his fur coat on the church threshold, and the dead tear the coat apart

Noiz agertu zen lehen aldiz?

Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s

landa-oharrak

Iturriek diotena

1

The word means 'churchyard folk', but väki also carries an older sense of 'force' or 'power'1

2

In legends they look like ordinary people or like rotting corpses and skeletons1

3

A migratory legend tells of the dead holding their own Christmas service and attacking a living person who walks in1

4

They reek of death; seers can see them, others only smell them1

5

Churchyard soil, bones or splinters of grave markers could be used to 'send' them against an enemy or set them on a thief1

6

Kaarina Koski's study draws on more than 2,000 records in the Finnish Literature Society's archives, richest in Ostrobothnia1

Ihes egingo zenioke korrika?

Abiadura-maila, iturriek nola deskribatzen duten oinarritzat hartuta (aldakorra), ez neurketa bat.

Zu, oinez 5 km/h (3.1 mph) inguru
Zu, korrika arin 10 km/h (6.2 mph) inguru
Kirkonväki 10 km/h (6.2 mph) inguru
Heldu sasoiko bat lasterka bizian 24 km/h (15 mph) inguru
Txirrindulari azkar bat 37 km/h (23 mph) inguru

Iturriak

  1. Kaarina Koski, 'Conceptual Analysis and Variation in Belief Tradition: A Case of Death-Related Beings', Folklore 38 (2008)

Orri honetako datu guztiak iturri hauetatik datoz, gure hitzez idatzita. Akatsen bat ikusi duzu? Esaguzu helbide honetan: [email protected].

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Garai bera: 1500etik 1899ra

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