The Folktale
Stith Thompson
The unquiet grave. (Cf. D2151.1.2.3.) Dead unable to rest in peace. Aside from the references given in the numbers immediately following, see E200 – E399 passim. Jewish: *Neuman; Icelandic: *Boberg; India: Thompson-Balys; Eskimo (Greenland): Rasmussen III 48. |
Part Two The Folktale from Ireland to India III – The Simple Tale 4. Legends and traditions C. Return from the Dead |
The same question of the reality of belief appears with especial clearness when we deal with legends concerning the return from the dead. [401] The attitude of the story-teller varies much from country to country. Tellers of popular tradition, and their listeners as well, usually make no question about the credibility of a ghost story. This is true even in those western countries most influenced by rationalistic thinking, though here the ghosts which are alleged to have appeared are usually mere spooks. The tradition of the person who returns from the realm of the dead to revisit old scenes has become much impoverished, so that we have to go to groups of people less disturbed in their ancient ways of thinking to find full-blooded ghosts. Medieval literature, in general, and the folklore of eastern Europe, not to speak of that from so-called primitive peoples, is filled with instances of dead men who appear to their friends or enemies in form and stature as they had lived. Hamlet's father is on the borderline between the two ideas: he is recognizable, but is also spectral. Sometimes, however, the ghost is little more than a living dead man in full flesh and blood pacing up and down the earth awaiting the second death when his body shall eventually disintegrate in the grave. Frightful creatures these are, often appearing as vampires living on the wholesome blood of mortals. It is hard to tell how widespread is the faith in the possibility of raising the dead. No study has ever been made that would throw, any light on beliefs of this kind at the present day in our western culture. It seems safe, however, to hazard a guess that such beliefs are very largely confined to strictly religious contexts, in which the occurrence is regarded as a definite miracle, a real interposition of power from on high. As we move eastward into Asia into other cultural patterns, and especially as we go on to Oceania or to the aborigines of the Americas or Africa, the bringing of a person back from the dead becomes much more commonplace and is easily accepted in non-sacred stories which are received as true. Very much the same situation is found when we look into the stories of reincarnation. First of all, it is not always possible to distinguish accurately between the return from the dead in another form and the idea of ordinary transformation. As conceived by Ovid, sometimes the change of a [p. 255] person into an object or animal takes place without death and sometimes as a definite return in a new form. In present Western Culture, tales of actual reincarnation are probably nearly always thought of as unmistakable fictions, even by those who might believe in magic transformations. Of course, again, as we reach India, metempsychosis becomes for millions an object of religious faith, and this fact has made instances of reincarnation commonplace in Hindu tradition. The very close relation of doctrines concerning future life and the next world to the whole religious belief and activity of people has profoundly affected this entire group of traditions. The pattern of organized Christian doctrine has worked for a thousand years or more to modify, and sometimes entirely to displace older concepts once universally accepted. Insofar as these survive at all, they are treated as fictions or, if not, those who believe in them are regarded as extraordinarily gullible and naive. But the poems and tales of Europe, both literary and popular, do contain many motifs dealing with the return of the dead, and seem to indicate a much richer tradition in former times. We have already encountered resuscitation in several of our folktales. The dead may be brought back to life by cutting off his head ( Nearly all these stories of resuscitation appear as motifs in folktales or myths, not as actual traditions. This is also true of most of the tales of reincarnation. In folktales they are rather common, and examples will occur to almost anyone familiar with them: the little boy in The Juniper Tree ( On the contrary, as we have already noticed, the living tradition and active faith of nearly all countries abound in ghost legends. Not only may thousands of people be found who testify to having seen ghosts, but practices are all but universal which assume for their justification a substratum of such a belief. There is so much variety in the general concept of ghost that one can hardly make an exact definition of it. In general, it may be said that we have legends all the way from a complete return from the dead with full human functions to the most wraithlike of spooks frightening people as they pass graveyards. We have noted that some traditions imply essentially a "living dead man," who merely wanders about waiting final death ( The dead may also return in their proper form on friendly missions. Best known of such stories, both in tales and ballads, are those concerning the return of a dead mother ( Retaining some of his human characteristics, but essentially ghostlike, is the vampire ( Tales of spooks are likely to be rather vague in their outlines and frequently to be little more than an example of some popular belief or practice. There are, for example, a large number of stories about the unquiet grave ( Many are the ways in which the dead are discouraged from leaving the grave and in which they are "laid" if they become restless and wander forth ( Ghosts are not always encountered by themselves. Many are the legends concerning groups of dancing ghosts ( The first of these, The Wild Hunt ( All these, and many other traditions of the return from the dead which might be cited, imply a belief in some mysterious element which survives the death of the body, that which we ordinarily call the soul. There is every tendency for popular tradition to conceive of this element in material terms, so that the passage of soul from body at death is not only actual but visible. Sometimes it is thought of as having the form of a mouse ( |
[401] The whole of chapter " [402] See [403] See [404] For other similar tales, see [405] Cf. the Greek ψυϰη, meaning at once soul and butterfly. |
Types: 303, 307, 313, 326, 363, 365, 366, 403, 470, 505-508, 510, 511, 531, 516, 550, 551, 590, 612, 709, 720, 753, 780, 923 |
Motifs A2261.1, D1960.1, D1960.2, E, E12, E15, E21.1, E30, E32, E33, E80, E102, E105, E106, E113, E155.1, E215, E221, E235, E238, E261, E282-E284, E323, E324, E341, E351, E352, E361, E410ff., E413, E414, E421.1.1, E421.1.2, E421.2, E421.3, E422, E422.1.1, E422.1.7, E423, E430ff., E440ff., E491, E492, E493, E501, E502, E511, E607.1, E610.1.1, E611.2, E631, E631.0.1, E632, E731.3, E732, E741.1.1, E756.1 |