Which zombie are you?
Zombie battle
Outrun them
Card collection
Language: English
Feed the horde (tip jar)
File No. 050 of 446
Nachzehrer
Also called: Nachtzehrer, shroud eater
The Nachzehrer is the German shroud-eater, a corpse that kills without getting up. By chewing its grave clothes it was thought to drag its surviving relatives after it one by one, by malice or simply from wanting company. The belief gave communities a reason to open graves during outbreaks of disease and helped shape learned debate about the 'masticating dead' in the 18th century. It represents the stationary end of the revenant spectrum, where the corpse is dangerous but does not walk.12
First recorded
1800
The word dates from the 19th century; the belief is several centuries olderOrigin
German
Germany, PolandWhat causes it
A bad death or burial
Folk explanations blame mistakes at burial, such as giving the dead some of the living's own belongings.How you become one
Burying a person with grave goods taken from the living, or with their name still on the burial clothes, was thought to risk it.
How it moves
Barely moves
It need not leave the grave at all: lying there, it chews its shroud and draws the life out of its kin at a distance.Intelligence
Some intelligence
When did it first appear?
1800The word dates from the 19th century; the belief is several centuries older
field notes
What the sources say
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at [email protected].
Strzyga
Upiór
Pień padlocked burial
Shoemaker of Breslau
Wiedergänger
Aufhocker
Jiangshi
Zombi (Haitian)
Strigoi
Vampir (South Slavic)
Abhartach
Arnold Paole