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

Kirkonväki

Ñu ngi koy wooye itam: kirkkomaanväki, kalmanväki, churchyard folk, manalaiset
Léeb ak cosaanNéew yu dundaatDafay soppiku1500 ba 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

Xeexal ko
Jëkk a bindu
1551
Related terms occur in Finnish sources from Mikael Agricola (1551) onward; most archive records date from the late 19th century to the 1960s
Cosaan
Finnish
Finlaand
Lan moo ko waral
Yeneen
The collective dead of a churchyard, active as a crowd around the church and around any unburied corpse.
Naka ngay doone benn
The dead buried in the parish churchyard.
Naka lay yëngoo
Dafay soppiku
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.
Xel
Am na tuuti xel
Fi mu néewe doole
  • 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

Kañ la jëkk a feeñ?

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

notu gëstu

Li sours yi wax

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

Ndax mën nga ko raw ci daw?

Gaawaay bi jóge ci ni sours yi ko melale (dafay soppiku), du natt.

Yow, ci dox lu tollu ci 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Yow, ci daw ndànk lu tollu ci 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Kirkonväki lu tollu ci 10 km/h (6.2 mph)
Mag bu am doole buy daw lu gaaw lool lu tollu ci 24 km/h (15 mph)
Ku gaaw ci welo lu tollu ci 37 km/h (23 mph)

Sours yi

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

Xibaar bu nekk ci xët wii jóge na ci sours yii, te nu bind ko ak sunu kàddu. Gis nga njuumte? Wax nu ko ci [email protected].

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Benn jamono: 1500 ba 1899

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