Gjenganger
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Gjenganger (Norwegian: Gjenganger Danish: Genganger Swedish: Gengångare). In scandinavian folklore, the entity hereby referred to as "gjenganger" is the equivalent of a ghost, but with several large differences from the modern, western perception of ghosts. The term gjenganger and its other scandinavian counterparts, can be directly translated into English as 're-walker' or 'walking again [where he has walked before]'. A more meaningful interpretation would be 'someone who has returned from the afterlife'.
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[edit] Causes
A gjenganger could have several reasons to return from the afterlife. Murdered people could seldom sleep peacefully in their graves. The same went for the murderers. People who had committed suicide often came back as gjenganger, because christian tradition held that "self-killers" were fit neither for heaven nor hell. At other times, people came back from the grave because they had something undone. Most often they needed someone to help them do this, before they could finally be at peace.
[edit] Characteristics
The biggest difference between modern ghosts and the gjenganger is that the gjenganger in the scandinavian tradition took on an entirely corporeal form. It normally had no spectre-like qualities whatsoever. In older traditions the gjenganger was also very malicious and violent in nature, coming back from the grave to torment their family and friends. In the way they acted, and in the extensive precautions their relatives took to make sure they stayed in their graves, the gjenganger is more akin to eastern-european vampires than "modern-day ghosts".
[edit] Viking Age
This old tradition of the violent gjenganger goes back to the viking age, where they are present in many of the icelandic sagas, among others: Grettis saga, Eyrbyggja saga and The Saga of Eric the Red. In this tradition, the gjenganger was a mortal creature. An example of this is Grettir slaying the gjenganger Glåm with his sword. These viking-age gjenganger where often called draugr, and the two are likely to be different names for the same phenomenon.
[edit] - ca. 1900
In slightly newer tradition, the gjenganger remains a violent entity, though in a less direct way, now becoming more of a disease-spreader. These gjenganger would attack people with their so-called dødningeknip (dead man's pinch). This would result in the living persons skin becoming sunken and blue where the gjenganger had pinched them, and this often led to disease and death for the afflicted person. The pinch was often administered when the person was asleep. Both the huldrefolk and nøkken were also accused of doing the same, using bites instead of pinches, often aimed at the victims face. This belief in beings attacking people in their sleep was used as a warning against going to sleep in specific places (near the graveyard, mountains or water respectively).
In later Swedish folklore, there is a distinction made between the traditional gjenganger and another type of ghost known as "gast". Whereas the gjenganger looked virtually identical to a living human, the gast was known to be transparent and/or skeletal in appearance, sometimes it also had sharp fangs and claws, thus making it impossible to see who the phantom had been while alive. And whereas the Swedish version of the gjenganger (unlike its counterparts in other scandinavion countries) were usually said to be rather harmless, it was the gasts who were known to cause diseases. They were also known to cause accidents and scare people for no apparent reason other than that they enjoyed doing so.
[edit] Protection and Prevention
People had numerous ways of both defending themselves against the gjenganger, and from stopping people becoming one in the first place. A few of them are mentioned here:
- Crucifixes and christian incantations to ward off the gjenganger.
- Painting symbols, especially the cross, with tar above your door was said to ward off all kinds of supernatural powers.
- When a person was buried, the coffin was carried over the church wall instead of through the gate (to stop him from coming back)
- For the same reason, the coffin was carried three times around the church before being buried.
- The shovels used to dig the grave was left behind, often on the grave itself in the shape of a cross.
- If the coffin was carried to church on a sleigh or other wooden transport, the transport should be left behind to rot, or be used by poor people as firewood.
- Perhaps the oldest example we have of an attempt to stop someone from coming back as a gjenganger, is a runic inscription from the 6th century. It was written on the inside of the grave, facing the dead. It reads as follows:
- New Norwegian
- For Birginga riste broren runer
- Kjære syster mi, skån meg!
- English
- For Birginga, the brother carved runes
- Please my sister, spare me!
A tradition that deserves special mention is that of the "varp". A varp is a pile of stones or twigs which often marks a place where someone has died. It was believed that when you passed this place, you should throw another stone/twig on the varp, to commemorate what had happened there. Doing so would sometimes bring luck on your further travels, while not doing so would result in bad luck and dangerous accidents. Many of these varps has now disappeared, especially the ones made out of twigs. But in a few places the varp is marked with a sign or something similar, and the tradition is kept alive to this day, though in a much looser, and often joking, manner.
[edit] Modern perception
Ever since spiritism came to Scandinavia around the beginning of the 20th century, the perception of the gjenganger has been gradually altered. Today it mostly compares with the modern perception of ghosts, most often being ethereal in form, and non-violent in nature. The word "gjenganger" is seemingly being used less and less, the contemporary word "spøkelse"(ghost) having mostly taken over.
[edit] Bibliography
- Hodne, Ørnulf (1995) Vetter og skrømt i norsk folketro
- Hodne, Ørnulf (2000) Mystiske steder i Norge
- Sivertsen, Birger (2000) For noen troll
