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Illustration of Kirkonväki
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Faylka No. 034 ee 446

Kirkonväki

Sidoo kale loo yaqaan: kirkkomaanväki, kalmanväki, churchyard folk, manalaiset
Khuraafaad iyo ugaarsiDhintayWay kala duwan yihiin1500 ilaa 1899

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

Dagaal geli
Markii ugu horreysay ee la diiwaangeliyay
1551
Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s
Asal
Finnish
Finland
Waxa sababa
Kale
The collective dead of a churchyard, active as a crowd around the church and around any unburied corpse.
Sida aad mid u noqotid
The dead buried in the parish churchyard.
Sida uu u dhaqaaqo
Way kala duwan yihiin
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.
Caqli
Caqli yar
Meelaha daciifka ah
  • 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

Goorma ayuu markii ugu horreysay soo baxay?

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

qoraallada goobta

Waxa ilaha yidhaahdaan

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

Ma ka orodi lahayd?

Fasalka xawaaraha iyadoo laga eegayo sida ilaha u sifeeyaan (way kala duwan yihiin), ma aha cabbir.

Adiga, socod qiyaastii 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Adiga, orod fudud qiyaastii 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Kirkonväki qiyaastii 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Qof weyn oo jir ahaan fiican oo orod ku jira qiyaastii 24 km/h (15 mph)
Baaskiil-raac degdeg ah qiyaastii 37 km/h (23 mph)

Ilaha

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

Xaqiiqo kasta oo bogga ku jirta waxay ka timid ishahan, waxaana lagu qoray hadalkayaga. Khalad ma aragtay? Noogu sheeg [email protected].

Quudi kooxda zombiyada. Xayeysiis ma jiro, raadraac ma jiro, hal qof baa bixiya. Tibiriq yar ayaa ka dhigaya shabakadda mid furan.Tibiriq reeb

Isla xilligaas: 1500 ilaa 1899

Quudi kooxda zombiyadaTibiriq reeb