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Illustration of Kirkonväki
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Faele Nom. 034 ya 446

Kirkonväki

Gape e bidiwa: kirkkomaanväki, kalmanväki, churchyard folk, manalaiset
Dinaane tsa setso le ditlhamaneBaswi ba ba tsogilengGo a farologana1500 go ya go 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

Di lwantshe
E kwadilwe la ntlha
1551
Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s
Tshimologo
Finnish
Finland
Se se e bakang
Tse dingwe
The collective dead of a churchyard, active as a crowd around the church and around any unburied corpse.
O fetoga yone jang
The dead buried in the parish churchyard.
E tsamaya jang
Go a farologana
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.
Botlhale
Botlhale bo bonnye
Bokoa
  • 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

E tlhagile la ntlha leng?

Lefatshe la bogologoloMotlha wa Bogare1500 go ya go 18991900 go ya go 19671968 go ya go 19992000 go ya go 20092010 go fitlha gompieno1551

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

dikwalo tsa patlisiso

Se metswedi e se buang

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

A o ka e siela kgakala?

Setlhopha sa bonako go ya ka fa metswedi e e tlhalosang ka teng (go a farologana), e seng tekanyo.

Wena, o tsamaya mo e ka nnang 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Wena, o taboga ka iketlo mo e ka nnang 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Kirkonväki mo e ka nnang 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Motho yo mogolo yo o itekanetseng a siana thata mo e ka nnang 24 km/h (15 mph)
Mopalami wa baesekele yo o bonako mo e ka nnang 37 km/h (23 mph)

Metswedi

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

Ntlha nngwe le nngwe mo tsebeng e e tswa mo metsweding e, e kwadilwe ka mafoko a rona. O bone phoso? Re bolelele kwa [email protected].

Fepa letshwititi. Ga go na dipapatso, ga go na dilatedi, e duelelwa ke motho a le mongwe. Madi a tebogo a e boloka e le mo inthaneteng.Tlogela madi a tebogo

Motlha o o tshwanang: 1500 go ya go 1899

JiangshiChinese, 1789Zombi (Haitian)Haitian (Vodou folklore), 1750StrigoiRomanian, 1714Vampir (South Slavic)South Slavic (Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Bosnian), 1725AbhartachIrish, 1870Arnold PaoleSerbian, 1732
Fepa letshwititiTlogela madi a tebogo