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Illustration of Lithuanian returning dead
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
Kayit No. 031 ci 446

Lithuanian returning dead

Ñu ngi koy wooye itam: sugrįžtantys numirėliai, numirėlis, walking dead of Lithuania
Léeb ak cosaanNéew yu dundaatDee wu bon walla suul gu baaxulDiggu jamono

Lithuania kept a strong tradition of the dangerous dead long after its conversion to Christianity. Cemeteries of the 14th to 17th centuries contain bodies deliberately beheaded, dismembered or turned face down, which archaeologists connect with fear of corpses returning. Lithuanian legends collected in modern times still describe meetings with the 'walking dead', usually brought on by disrespect for a grave. The material and the stories together give a Baltic counterpart to the revenant evidence from England and Poland.12

Xeexal ko
Jëkk a bindu
1350
Deviant burials of the 14th-17th centuries; legends recorded by modern folklorists
Cosaan
Lithuanian
Litiyani
Lan moo ko waral
Dee wu bon walla suul gu baaxul
Folklore names the untimely dead and the very sinful as those who return; the legends add that the living provoke them by disturbing remains or grave goods.
Naka ngay doone benn
An unexpected or wrongful death, a sinful life, or interference with the grave.
Xel
Am na tuuti xel
Fi mu néewe doole
  • decapitation of the exhumed corpse
  • burial face down or on the side
  • physical force
  • the intervention of a priest

Kañ la jëkk a feeñ?

Àddina su yàggDiggu jamono1500 ba 18991900 ba 19671968 ba 19992000 ba 20092010 ba tey1350

Deviant burials of the 14th-17th centuries; legends recorded by modern folklorists

notu gëstu

Li sours yi wax

1

Archaeologist Gintautas Vėlius documented headless, limbless and prone burials in Christian-era Lithuanian cemeteries12

2

He interprets posthumous beheading as exhumation carried out from fear of the returning dead12

3

Many prone male burials contain weapons, suggesting men killed in battle12

4

In legends analysed by Edita Korzonaitė, short tales end with the living person's death and longer ones with a narrow escape12

5

Priests in the legends sometimes use methods with no obvious Christian basis12

Sours yi

  1. Gintautas Vėlius, 'Sugrįžtantys numirėliai' (Returning dead: unconventional burials in medieval Lithuania), Lietuvos istorijos studijos 25 (2010)
  2. Edita Korzonaitė, 'Human contacts with the dead: relationship of fable and reality in folklore', Tautosakos darbai 25 (2003)

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Benn jamono: Diggu jamono

DraugrNorse, 1250VetalaHindu (Indian), 1070GlámrNorse (Icelandic saga), 1300Revenant (medieval England)Medieval English, 1100UpiórSlavic, 1100AsvithNorse (Danish chronicle and Icelandic saga), 1200
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