Lexicon.
Folkloric and paranormal terms, recorded as the older sources used them.
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Banshee Ireland
The Irish *bean sí*, the woman of the fairy mound. A female spirit who attaches to particular families and announces an approaching death by keening, the older funerary lament. She is heard rather tha…
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Bhuta South Asia, Hindu and Jain traditions
The Sanskrit *bhūta*, the wandering spirit. The figure of the dead who has not received the proper *Śrāddha*, the post-funerary rites that release the soul from its attachment to the place and the mom…
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Doppelgänger Germany; broader Northern European parallels
From the German *Doppelgänger*, the double-walker. The figure is the visible double of a living person, encountered by a third party, at a place the living person is not. To see one's own doppelgänger…
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Draugr Old Norse
The Old Norse revenant. The walking dead, animated rather than spectral, retaining the body and its weight. The figure is recorded extensively in the Icelandic sagas, where the draugr keeps to the bur…
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Dybbuk Eastern European Jewry (Yiddish-speaking lands)
A possessing spirit of the Jewish folk tradition, recorded across the Yiddish-speaking lands of Eastern Europe from the sixteenth century forward. The Hebrew *dibbuk* derives from the verb *davak*, to…
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Hag Old English; broader Indo-European parallels
From the Old English *hægtesse*, an older feminine spirit-figure, narrowed in later usage to the witch and to the figure who visits the sleeper at the threshold of waking. The hag is the original name…
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Huldra Norway and Sweden
A female forest spirit of the Norwegian and Swedish record, recorded across the saeter (mountain pasture) tradition and the deep-forest oral corpus. The figure appeared as a beautiful young woman to t…
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Kappa Japan
A small water-dwelling spirit of the Japanese tradition, recorded across the rivers, ponds, and irrigation channels of rural Japan. The figure was given the body of a child, the beak of a turtle, scal…
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Kuchisake-onna Japan
A figure of the modern Japanese oral record, documented during the panic of 1978 and 1979 in Gifu prefecture and across the country before subsiding. She approached children at dusk wearing a surgical…
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Ma Da Vietnam
The Vietnamese spirit of one who has drowned in still or slow water and remains held in the place of drowning until another takes the place. The mechanism is recorded as *thế mạng*, substitution. The…
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Manananggal Philippines, primarily Visayan provinces
From the Tagalog *tanggál*, to remove or to separate. The figure is recorded principally in the Visayan provinces of Capiz, Iloilo, Bohol, and Antique, and is one of the older female spirits of the Ph…
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Planchette France, mid-nineteenth century
From the French diminutive of *planche*, a small board. A heart-shaped, three-legged piece of wood designed to glide across a flat surface beneath the lightly placed fingers of two or more sitters. Th…
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Poltergeist Germany
From the German *poltern*, to make noise, and *Geist*, spirit. The literal translation is the noisy ghost. The category names a particular kind of household disturbance: knocks, thrown objects, doors…
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Preta South Asia (Sanskrit and Pali tradition, transmitted across Buddhist Asia)
The hungry ghost of the Sanskrit and Pali traditions, recorded in the Pali *Petavatthu* (Book of Stories of the Departed) within the Khuddaka Nikaya. The figure was given a tiny mouth, a needle-thin t…
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Vetala South Asia (Sanskrit tradition)
A corpse-possessing spirit of the Sanskrit and Hindu folk record. The figure was given the form of a corpse hung from a tree at the cremation ground, animated rather than spectral, capable of speech,…
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Vrykolakas Greece and the Greek-speaking world
The revenant of the modern Greek tradition, recorded in continuous folk practice from the Byzantine period to the twentieth century. The figure was held to be the body of one whose burial was incomple…