Hi guys! It is Niina you are watching Fairychamber channel.
In Finnish myths and folklore
"kalmanväki" has refered to dead people and
death in general.
All kinds of things related to death
and spirits of the death and to the spirit world.
Spiritual creatures.
Traditionally in ancient (and somewhat in modern)
Finland it has been traditional to honor once ancestors.
But it was mostly relatives that one knew.
Like grandparents and maybe great-grandparents.
But after that things start to get blurry.
We don't know who our
great great great great ancestors were
and what kind of people they were.
Those long ago passed away relatives
they are not that close.
"Kalmanväki" (literally means group of dead people)
could have refered into relatives that
had passed away long time ago
and living didn't have emotional connections to them that much.
Kalmanväki was also used to describe all kinds
of elves and fairies and spirits
ihtiriekko; liekkiö
virvatuli (will o wisps)
keijungainen
all kinds of magical beings
from Finnish mythology that were
related to death.
They are also part of
kalmanväki
There was also "kirkonväki" (folk of the church)
They were believed to stay in the graveyards.
Also that different kinds of spirits
elves and demons
who were fascinated by death
they went and visited kirkonväki to the cemeteries.
It was believed (during the time of reformation and after)
that some of them were working for the devil in Christianity.
People were afraid of kirkonväki
same way as kalmanväki.
One way for the kirkonväki to leave
the graveyard
could leave the cemetery.
They could just start following some
random person.
They could make this person
ill, transmit them a disease
or something else from the
cold dungeons of death.
In Finnish
the word "väki" traditionally refers into power and
strength of some specific thing.
It can also refers into group of different things.
In modern Finnish language it refers into group of people but that was not the case in the past.
But it could refer to
all kinds of groups of
invisible
spirits.
So the groups had invisible power
within them.
It was believed that
kalmanväki had very strong
powers related to death.
Power of death people could use that for both negative and positive.
Positive qualities were that
witches and shamans could harness this power of death
for example
to heal people that were very ill.
If it happened that kalmanväki or
kirkonväki started to follow
some particular person.
Only people who could see these living dead
was a shaman or a witch and only they
could banish living dead
back into their graves
into the cemetery.
In Finland and around the world it has been believed
that dead people can appear
to a person that is about to die.
Dead relative can appear
to a person
that is somewhere between life and death.
There is a folktale told in Finland that I think is funny
and many other people think is creepy.
Tale goes that in Christmas eve the kirkonvaki
living dead of the cemetery wake up
from their graves in the night of Christmas eve and
they go into church and have midnight Christmas ceremony
and priest that has also got up from his grave
reads the nativity story.
It was believed that some people
could posses so called "kalmannenä" (literally means nose of death).
If person got sick with kalmannenä
they started to see more dead people than living.
They would slowly loose all
their senses.
In Finland historians and doctors and medical persons
have researched old texts and
many of them have come into conclusions
that people who were sick with kalmannenä
in fact might have suffered from schizophrenia.
When in FInland we tell ghost stories
ghosts are usually describe to be transparent creatures
or shadows
But when
we talk about kalmanväki.
They are ugly zombies and
living dead.
Kalmanväki were corpses rising from
their graves while decomposing.
When dead person was buried
they slowly stopped being individuals.
Their persona and life achievements
disappeared during
the process of dying. They became part of
the "community of the dead"
or the community of the graveyard/church of the dead
There are also stories told in Finland that
living have come across familiar living dead in the cemeteries
but these meetings are quite rare.
During the day people of the graveyards
were very peaceful.
But it was very different during the night time.
These kinds of stories are told about
the living dead in FInnish myths and folklore.
Thank you for watching and I will see you on my next video )O(
Bye Bye
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