
Kodukäija
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
- 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
Li sours yi wax
Ndax mën nga ko raw ci daw?
Gaawaay bi jóge ci ni sours yi ko melale (dafay soppiku), du natt.
Sours yi
- Eha Viluoja, 'Manifestations of the Revenant in Estonian Folk Tradition', Folklore 2
- Eha Viluoja, 'Relations Between the Living and the Dead in Estonian Folk Religion', Folklore 4
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].