This is a unique creature which is said to be completely corporeal; therefore, it’s not a ghost. It hails from Scandinavian folklore creatures. This is also a creepy undead creature which rises from the grave to complete some incomplete piece of work. It can be the spirit of a suicide victim, murder victim or the murderer himself. It’s demeanor in its afterlife is necessarily vicious for it tries to harm the people it had loved in its lifetime in order to gain a comrade and finish its tasks. The Gjenganger is originally a Viking legend.
Characteristics:
A gjenganger could have several reasons to return from the afterlife. Murdered people and their murderers could seldom sleep peacefully in their graves. People who had committed suicide often came back as gjengangere. At other times, people came back from the grave because they had left something undone. Most often they needed someone to help them do this, before they could finally be at peace.
The gienganger in the Scandinavian tradition took on an entirely corporeal form. It normally had no specter-like qualities whatsoever. In older traditions, the gjenganger was very malicious and violent in nature, coming back from the grave to torment its family and friends. Their relatives took extensive precautions to make sure they stayed in their graves.
Protection/Prevention:
- Crucifixes and Christian incantations
- Painting symbols, especially the cross
- Coffin was carried three times around the church before being buried.
The tradition of a pile of stones or twigs (varp) often marked 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 have now disappeared, but in a few places the varp is marked with a sign or something similar.