If you have seen the French series "Les revenants" you will know what we want to talk about in this post.The figure of the revenants was not something that French scriptwriters invented, but centuries ago that It is a concept that is repeated in the folklore of many countries in Europe.Join us to meet the Revenants and discover some curious and terrifying medieval stories and legends about those who returned from death.
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The Revenants
Revenants is a French word that refers to the "visible ghosts or animated corpses" that returned from the death, physically rising from their graves, to persecute and terrorize the living.
Description of the revenants
The revenants are usually described s as dead bodies in an advanced state of decomposition, but in which you can still recognize who they were when they lived.They have bright and red eyes, rotten teeth and usually lack pieces of meat throughout their anatomy.The skin hangs on them strips and worms are grouped in the visible rot.They smell foul and by that smell they can be detected and followed to their grave and clothing and some are broken by the effort made to get out of their confinement.Surely with this description You would have thought that they resemble the zombies of "The Walking Dead", however this is the idea they had in the middle of the revenants .
Medieval stories about those who returned from death
In European folklore there are many stories about revenants , but the moment of greatest expansion of this belief occurred during the Middle Ages, in the 12th century.The revenants that we find in the European legends of that time have a series of characteristics in common: those who returned or "resurrected" used to be evildoers during their existence and had shown their evil or lack of faith.It was also considered that this kind of "zombies" spread diseases so it was necessary to end their presence Somehow, the most common thing was to open the grave, exhume the corpse and decapitate it, take it out of the heart and finally burn it.Only then could you be sure that the revenants would not bother the living again.
The revenant of York
William of Newburgh, 12th-century Augustinian canon wrote several stories to serve as a warning to future generations.One of them was that of an evil man from York, persecuted for justice, who decided to marry.Jealous of his wife, he hid among the beams of his house and saw how she lay with a young man from the town.He unbalanced, fell and killed himself.Despite not deserving it, Newburgh explains that he received a Christian burial, but it didn't help him since the devil lifted him from his grave and the man began to chase his neighbors through the streets of the village during the night.
The neighbors followed their smelly trail to the grave and did not have to dig long until they found the corpse swollen and covered in blood.people, they ripped out his heart and burned him in a pyre.After these acts, the revenant did not appear again.
The revenant of Hereford
These facts were reported by a chronicler of the 12th century.I explain that in the city of Hereford an evil man died and that the following night he was seen through the streets of the town shouting the names of the citizens who would die in 3 days.
The bishop from the region he was consulted and ordered to open the tomb, separate the head of the body from the corpse with a shovel, sprinkle it with holy water and bury it again.According to the chronicler, the problem I just like that.
The revenant peasants
This medieval story tells that two fugitive peasants died in a village and were buried, but at dusk they were seen walking through the streets of the town carrying their own coffin on the shoulders, hitting the walls of the houses and shouting “Move! Come!” Soon the villagers became ill and began to die.According to Burton, an English city, the epidemic cease when the peasants were unearthed, their heads cut off and their hearts extracted.
The German revenants: the Wiederganger
In some areas of Germany, at the beginning of the 20th century there was still the belief in a curious type of revenants .They were the Wiederganger.These undead did not leave their graves but for a mental effect to they fecured the living as they were absorbed by the vital energy.There was also another type of Wiederganger that if he left his grave and jumped on the back of the people who walked at night near the cemeteries he was taken to his grave or to the church and along the way he left without power the bearer who was exhausted or dead.
The stories of revenants are absolutely incredible in the eyes of the 21st century, but these evil ghosts caused dread during the Middle Ages.What do you think about revenants? Do they look like the zombies we see in today's movies and series?
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