Wojciech Gerson - Zjawa Barbary Radziwiłłówny

The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by supernatural means, technology, or disease. In some cases (for example in Dungeons & Dragons) the term also includes

incorporeal Incorporeality is "the state or quality of being incorporeal or bodiless; immateriality; incorporealism." Incorporeal (Greek: ἀσώματος) means "Not composed of matter; having no material existence." Incorporeality is a quality of souls, ...

forms of the dead, such as

ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

s. The undead are featured in the belief systems of most cultures, and appear in many works of fantasy and horror fiction. The term is also occasionally used for real-life attempts to resurrect the dead with science and technology, from early experiments like Robert E. Cornish's to future sciences such as "chemical brain preservation" and " cryonics."

History

Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and busine ...

considered using the title, ''The Un-Dead'', for his novel ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...

'' (1897), and use of the term in the novel is mostly responsible for the modern sense of the word. The word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of "alive" or "not dead", for which citations can be found in the '' Oxford English Dictionary''. In one passage of ''Dracula'', '' Nosferatu'' is given as an "Eastern European" synonym for "un-dead". Stoker's use of the term "undead" refers only to

vampires A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths ...

; the extension to other types of supernatural beings arose later. Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to supernatural beings who had at one point been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death, but the usage is highly variable. Reanimation or the creation of zombies through non-supernatural means has become a trope since at least the 19th century. '' Frankenstein'' (1818) used unspecified technological means, the influential '' I Am Legend'' (1954) blamed a germ, '' The Return of the Living Dead'' (1985) depicted a toxic gas, and '' Resident Evil'' (2002) featured a bioweapon. The undead have become popular adversaries in fantasy and horror settings, featuring prominently in many

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

s and strategy games.

Literature

up'' The Dead Lovers'', ca. 1470 (Strasbourg, Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame">Strasbourg.html" ;"title="The Dead Lovers'', ca. 1470 (Strasbourg">The Dead Lovers'', ca. 1470 (Strasbourg, Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame) In

's novel ''

'', Van Helsing describes the Un-Dead as the following: Other notable 19th-century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce's '' The Death of Halpin Frayser'', and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, by Lovecraft's own admission. In Russia, the undead was the theme of Alexander Belyaev's novel '' Professor Dowell's Head'' (1925), in which a mad scientist performs experimental head transplants on bodies stolen from the morgue, and reanimates the corpses. Utagawa Yoshiiku Specter

List of undead forms

Physical corpses

* Anchimayen *

Ahkiyyini The Ahkiyyini is a skeleton spirit in Inuit folklore. He is the ghost of Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western Uni ...

Draugr The draugr or draug ( non, draugr, plural ; modern is, draugur, fo, dreygur and Danish language, Danish, Swedish language, Swedish, and no, draug) is an undead creature from the Scandinavian saga literature and folktale. Commentators extend t ...

* Drekavac * Deildegast *

Dhampir In Balkans folklore, dhampirs (sometimes spelled ''dhampyres'', ''dhamphirs'', or ''dhampyrs'') are creatures that are the result of a union between a vampire and a mortal human. This union was usually between male vampires and female mortal huma ...

Fext A Fext is a mythical undead creature in Slavic mythology. Its origins are found in the terrors of the Thirty Years' War (17th century) in central Europe. It is said that the Fext is invincible to bullets, except bullets made of glass. Some of the gr ...

* Ghoul * Gashadokuro * Gjenganger * Hone-onna * Jiangshi * Kukudh * Lich *

Langsuyar The langsuyar (), also lang suir or langsuir, is a female revenant in Malay and other mythologies in the Malay archipelago. The word is derived from the Malay word for eagle (''helang''). Description A langsuyar is a type of vampire which is ...

* Mummy * Nachzehrer * Qutrub * Revenant *

Ro-langs A ro-langs (Tibetan: རོ་ལང) is a zombie-like creature from Tibetan folklore. Ro is the word for corpse and Langs is the perfect tense of "to rise up", so Ro-Langs literally means "a risen corpse". A ro-langs is usually created by a gdon ...

Orek An Orek ( Turkish: ''Örek'', Azerbaijanese: ''Örək'', Tatar: ''Өрәк'' or ''Öräk'', Bashkort: ''Өрәк'') in Turkic folklore is an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The idea of Örek is present ...

Skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

Rusalka In Slavic folklore, the rusalka (plural: rusalky/rusalki; ; pl, rusałka}) is a typically feminine entity, often malicious toward mankind and frequently associated with water, with counterparts in other parts of Europe, such as the French Melus ...

* Strzyga * Vampire * Vrykolakas * Vetala * Wight *

Wiedergänger The name ''Wiedergänger'' refers to different zombie or ghost phenomena from different cultural areas. The word means "one who walks again" in German. The core of the wiedergänger myth is the concept of the deceased, who—often in the form of ...

* Zombie * Zombie animal

Incorporeal spirits (Non-physical)

* Ayakashi * Banshee * Baykok * Bal-Bal * Bhoot * Dullahan *

Dunnie A Dunnie is a small Brownie-like being in the folklore of the Anglo-Scottish borders, specifically Northumberland, the most famous being that of the ''Hazlerigg Dunnie'' of Hazlerigg in the parish of Chatton, Northumberland.''Notes on the folk-l ...

* Funayūrei *

Ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

, phantom, or spectre * Goryō *

Hupia In Taíno culture, the hupia (also ''opia'', ''opi'a'', ''op'a'', ''operi'to'') is the spirit of a person who has died. In Taíno spiritual beliefs, hupias (ghost spirits of those who had died) were contrasted with goeiza, spirits of the living. ...

* Hitodama *

Headless Horseman The Headless Horseman is a mythical figure who has appeared in folklore around the world since the Middle Ages. The figure is traditionally depicted as a rider upon horseback who is missing his head. Description Depending on the legend, the Hor ...

* Inugami * Ikiryō * The Grim Reaper *

Jikininki appear in Lafcadio Hearn's ''Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things'' (1904) as cadaver, corpse-eating spirits. In Buddhism in Japan, Japanese Buddhism, ''jikininki'' ("human-eating ghosts"; pronounced ''shokujinki'' in modern Japanese lan ...

* Korean Virgin Ghost * Kuntilanak * Kuchisake-onna * Lemures * Lietuvēns * Mavka * Moroi * Mononoke * Mogwai *

Myling In Scandinavian folklore, the mylingar were the phantasmal incarnations of the souls of children that had been forced to roam the earth until they could persuade someone (or otherwise cause enough of a ruckus to make their wishes known) to bury t ...

* Noppera-bō * Onryō *

Poltergeist In ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; German for "rumbling ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descr ...

* Pocong * Preta * Sluagh * Shade * Shiryō * Shikigami * Sayona * Strigoi * Shadow person * Umibōzu * Ubume * Vengeful ghost * Yūrei * Yuki-onna *

Wraith Wraith is one of several traditional terms for a ghost or spirit. Wraith, Wraiths, or The Wraith may also refer to: Fiction Characters * Wraith (G.I. Joe), a Cobra mercenary in ''G.I. Joe: America's Elite'' * Wraith (Image Comics), a comic book s ...

History

Literature

List of undead forms

Physical corpses

Incorporeal spirits (Non-physical)

Mixed

See also

References

External links