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Illustration of Kodukäija
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Kayit No. 054 ci 446

Kodukäija

Ñu ngi koy wooye itam: kodukäijad, home-wanderer, Estonian revenant
Léeb ak cosaanNéew yu dundaatDafay soppikuDee wu bon walla suul gu baaxul1500 ba 1899

The kodukäija is the restless dead of Estonian folk belief, a deceased person who returns to the farm outside the sanctioned autumn 'time of souls'. It ranges from a worried parent checking on children to a hostile corpse that wrestles travellers by moonlight and kills livestock. Estonian funerals carried a whole apparatus against it, from sweeping away the mourners' footprints to burying the body face down. It is the Baltic-Finnic counterpart of the Scandinavian gjenganger and the German Wiedergänger, and it remained a living belief into the 20th century.12

Xeexal ko
Jëkk a bindu
1860
Systematic records begin with Jakob Hurt's folklore collection (1860-1906); the belief itself is older
Cosaan
Estonian
Estoni
Lan moo ko waral
Dee wu bon walla suul gu baaxul
Folklorist Eha Viluoja traces most returns to a flaw in the passage out of life: a violent or lonely death, a botched or missing funeral, or the dead person's last wishes being ignored.
Naka ngay doone benn
Spiteful people, suspected witches, misers, the murdered, and anyone buried carelessly or mourned too hard were expected to 'walk home'.
Naka lay yëngoo
Dafay soppiku
Usually walks, with a normal or a bobbing gait, in its own likeness or grave clothes; it can also come as a dog, cat or other animal, or as a moving haystack, sack or whirlwind.
Xel
Am na tuuti xel
Fi mu néewe doole
  • wolves, which were held to be as deadly to it as lightning
  • a beating with a rowan or juniper stick or a nine-knotted whip
  • a silver bullet or quicksilver
  • crosses, knives, salt or flax seed at thresholds and gates
  • binding or crippling the corpse, or burying it face down
  • a cock's crow, which halts it for the night

Kañ la jëkk a feeñ?

Systematic records begin with Jakob Hurt's folklore collection (1860-1906); the belief itself is older

notu gëstu

Li sours yi wax

1

The name means 'home-walker': a dead person who comes home at the wrong time12

2

It is cold to the touch and can pinch, strike, scratch or try to strangle12

3

It lets cattle loose, rumbles in the loft and imitates the sounds of work12

4

Dogs with spots over the eyes ('four-eyed' dogs) can see it12

5

The Estonian Folklore Archives hold about 3,600 records of it, seven times more than for the ordinary autumn visit of ancestral souls12

6

Viluoja notes that blood-drinking, vampire-type dead are not part of the Estonian tradition12

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)
Kodukäija 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)

Leel mbooloo mi. Amul piblisite, amul kuy topp, benn nit moo koy fey. Tuuti xaalis dafay tax mu des ci internet.Bàyyi tuuti xaalis

Benn jamono: 1500 ba 1899

Leel mbooloo miBàyyi tuuti xaalis