120-486: Barrow-wights are wraith -like creatures in J. R. R. Tolkien 's world of Middle-earth . In The Lord of the Rings , the four hobbits are trapped by a barrow-wight, and are lucky to escape with their lives; but they gain ancient swords of Westernesse for their quest. Tolkien derived the idea of barrow-wights from Norse mythology , where heroes of several Sagas battle undead beings known as draugrs . Scholars have noted
240-481: A barrow-wight: Suddenly he saw, towering ominous before him and leaning slightly towards one another like the pillars of a headless door, two huge standing stones... He had passed between them almost before he was aware: and even as he did so darkness seemed to fall round him. Frodo manages to resist the wight's spell; looking about, he sees the other hobbits dressed in grave-goods, in thin white clothes with gold circlets and chains, swords and shields around them, and
360-459: A continued presence in some form of afterlife , the spirit of a deceased person that persists in the material world (a ghost) is regarded as an unnatural or undesirable state of affairs and the idea of ghosts or revenants is associated with a reaction of fear. This is universally the case in pre-modern folk cultures, but fear of ghosts also remains an integral aspect of the modern ghost story , Gothic horror , and other horror fiction dealing with
480-540: A costumed theatre concert, directed by Nikolaj Cederholm with Fredman's Epistles and Fredman's Songs arranged by Kåre Bjerkø for guitar, electric guitar, double bass, cello, tuba, clarinet, drumkit and percussion, keyboards, accordion, and five voices. Bellman has been translated into at least 20 languages, including English, most notably by Paul Britten Austin , and German, including by Hannes Wader . German Communist leader Karl Liebknecht liked Bellman's songs and translated some into German. Hans Christian Andersen
600-552: A dead person or non-human animal that is believed by some people 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 realistic, lifelike forms. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy , or in spiritism as a séance . Other terms associated with it are apparition, haunt, haint, phantom, poltergeist , shade , specter, spirit, spook, wraith, demon , and ghoul . The belief in
720-408: A death not his own". He observes that Merry has taken on the warrior's personality, not that of the wight, since Tom recalls the dead with affection. That leaves, Shippey writes, the question of who or what the wight was as a mystery. The deathly-white robes, the writhing hand, the hobbits arrayed for death, give the thrill of fantasy, but this is given solidity by being tied into a wider history which
840-402: A ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or " fetch " is a related omen of death. The impetus of haunting is commonly considered an unnatural death. White ladies were reported to appear in many rural areas, and supposed to have died tragically or suffered trauma in life. White Lady legends are found around the world. Common to many of them
960-473: A master improviser. Bellman's songs continue to be performed and recorded by musicians from Scandinavia and in other languages, including English, French, German, Italian, and Russian. Several of his songs including Gubben Noak and Fjäriln vingad are known by heart by many Swedes. His legacy further includes a museum in Stockholm and a society that fosters interest in him and his work. Carl Michael Bellman
1080-401: A person named Bellman, an antihero or modern-day trickster with little or no connection to the poet. The first known Bellman joke is in a book from 1835, which quoted a letter written in 1808 by a contemporary of Bellman. 19th-century Bellman jokes were told by adults and focused on Bellman's life at court; they often related to sex. In the 20th century, the 'Bellman' character became generic,
1200-457: A priest, but he fell ill with a fever, and on recovering found he could express any thought in rhyming verse. His parents appointed a tutor called Ennes who Bellman called "a genius". Bellman was taught French, German, Italian, English, and Latin. He read Horace and Boileau ; Ennes taught him to write poetry and to translate French and German hymns. He was familiar with stories from the Bible including
1320-594: A resemblance, too, between the breaking of the barrow-wight's spell and the final battle in Beowulf , where the dragon 's barrow is entered and the treasure released from its spell. Barrow-wights do not appear in Peter Jackson 's film trilogy , but they do feature in computer games based on Tolkien's Middle-earth. A barrow is a burial mound, such as was used in Neolithic times. A wight , from Old English : wiht ,
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#17328545767191440-633: A similar term is draugr ). It influenced Tolkien's barrow-wights, whether directly from the Old Norse or by way of Magnússon and Morris's translation. Barrow-wights have appeared in Scandinavian literature in the modern era, for instance in the Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman 's 1791 song no. 32 Träd fram du Nattens Gud ("Step forth, thou god of night"), whose second stanza runs (translated): Your quilt covers everything... Look at Flora's gardens! Here
1560-406: A specific period to atone for their transgressions in life. Their penance was generally related to their sin. For example, the ghost of a man who had been abusive to his servants was condemned to tear off and swallow bits of his own tongue; the ghost of another man, who had neglected to leave his cloak to the poor, was condemned to wear the cloak, now "heavy as a church tower". These ghosts appeared to
1680-410: A sword lying across their necks. He seizes a small sword and cuts off the wight's hand. When the wight extinguishes the dim light in the cavern, Frodo calls for Tom Bombadil , who expels the wight from the barrow, rescues the hobbits, and recovers the wight's treasure-hoard, which included ancient Númenórean swords. Frodo sees the separated hand continuing to wriggle by itself. The cairn was that of
1800-471: A variety of illnesses to the action of ghosts, while others were caused by gods or demons. There was widespread belief in ghosts in ancient Egyptian culture . The Hebrew Bible contains few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities cf. Deuteronomy 18:11. The most notable reference is in the First Book of Samuel (I Samuel 28:3–19 KJV), in which a disguised King Saul has
1920-729: Is ahma , Old Norse has andi m., önd f.), it appears to be a dental suffix derivative of pre-Germanic *ghois-d-oz ('fury, anger'), which is comparable to Sanskrit héḍas ('anger') and Avestan zōižda - ('terrible, ugly'). The prior Proto-Indo-European form is reconstructed as *ǵʰéys-d-os , from the root *ǵʰéys- , which is reflected in Old Norse geisa ('to rage') and *geiski ('fear'; cf. geiskafullr 'full of fear'), in Gothic usgaisjan ('to terrify') and usgaisnan ('to be terrified'), as well as in Avestan zōiš- (cf. zōišnu 'shivering, trembling'). The Germanic word
2040-568: Is a Scots word for ghost , spectre , or apparition . It appeared in Scottish Romanticist literature, and acquired the more general or figurative sense of portent or omen . In 18th- to 19th-century Scottish literature, it also applied to aquatic spirits. The word has no commonly accepted etymology; the OED notes "of obscure origin" only. An association with the verb writhe was the etymology favored by J. R. R. Tolkien . Tolkien's use of
2160-515: Is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music , as well as in Scandinavian literature , to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare , Beethoven , Mozart , and Hogarth , but his gift, using elegantly rococo classical references in comic contrast to sordid drinking and prostitution—at once regretted and celebrated in song—is unique. Bellman
2280-475: Is a person or other sentient being. There are tales of wights, called vǣttr or draugr , undead grave-spirits with bodies, in Norse mythology . In Norway, country people in places such as Eidanger considered that the dead went on living in their tombs as vetter or protective spirits, and up to modern times continued to offer sacrifices on the grave-mounds. Tolkien stated in his " Nomenclature of The Lord of
2400-442: Is at least hinted at. The literature scholar Patrick Callahan notes that the whole Bombadil episode seems disconnected from the rest of the story, but that the barrow-wight story resembles the final fight in Beowulf , when the king, now old, goes out to do battle with the barrow-dragon. He dies, but the funeral-barrow's treasure is recovered and the curse on it is broken, just as with the barrow-wight's. Callahan observes, too, that
2520-432: Is best known for two collections of poems set to music, Fredman's epistles ( Fredmans epistlar ) and Fredman's songs ( Fredmans sånger ). Each consists of about 70 songs. The general theme is drinking, but the songs "most ingeniously" combine words and music to express feelings and moods ranging from humorous to elegiac , romantic to satirical . Bellman's patrons included King Gustav III of Sweden, who called him
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#17328545767192640-432: Is dead but her refusal would mean his damnation. This reflects a popular British belief that the dead haunted their lovers if they took up with a new love without some formal release. " The Unquiet Grave " expresses a belief even more widespread, found in various locations over Europe: ghosts can stem from the excessive grief of the living, whose mourning interferes with the dead's peaceful rest. In many folktales from around
2760-891: Is no scientific evidence that any location is inhabited by the spirits of the dead. Historically, certain toxic and psychoactive plants (such as datura and hyoscyamus niger ), whose use has long been associated with necromancy and the underworld , have been shown to contain anticholinergic compounds that are pharmacologically linked to dementia (specifically DLB ) as well as histological patterns of neurodegeneration . Recent research has indicated that ghost sightings may be related to degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease . Common prescription medication and over-the-counter drugs (such as sleep aids ) may also, in rare instances, cause ghost-like hallucinations, particularly zolpidem and diphenhydramine . Older reports linked carbon monoxide poisoning to ghost-like hallucinations. In folklore studies , ghosts fall within
2880-410: Is no-one left to remember the one who died. In many cultures, malignant, restless ghosts are distinguished from the more benign spirits involved in ancestor worship. Ancestor worship typically involves rites intended to prevent revenants , vengeful spirits of the dead, imagined as starving and envious of the living. Strategies for preventing revenants may either include sacrifice , i.e., giving
3000-521: Is recorded as masculine only, but likely continues a neuter s -stem. The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been an animating principle of the mind , in particular capable of excitation and fury (compare óðr ). In Germanic paganism , " Germanic Mercury ", and the later Odin , was at the same time the conductor of the dead and the "lord of fury" leading the Wild Hunt . Besides denoting
3120-416: Is the concept of a fetch , the visible ghost or spirit of a person yet alive. A notion of the transcendent , supernatural , or numinous , usually involving entities like ghosts, demons , or deities , is a cultural universal . In pre-literate folk religions , these beliefs are often summarized under animism and ancestor worship . Some people believe the ghost or spirit never leaves Earth until there
3240-661: Is the theme of losing a child or husband and a sense of purity, as opposed to the Lady in Red ghost that is mostly attributed to a jilted lover or prostitute. The White Lady ghost is often associated with an individual family line or regarded as a harbinger of death similar to a banshee . Legends of ghost ships have existed since the 18th century; most notable of these is the Flying Dutchman . This theme has been used in literature in The Rime of
3360-634: The Apocrypha , many of which found their way into the songs he composed in later life. However, expenses including the Swedish tradition of hospitality left the family with no money to start him off in life with a journey to the south of Europe, such as to Spain to visit his uncle, Jacob Martin Bellman, who was the Swedish Consul in Cádiz . Carl Michael translated a French book by Du Four and dedicated it to his uncle, but
3480-754: The Barrow-downs by the Witch-king of Angmar to prevent the restoration of the destroyed Dúnedain kingdom of Cardolan, one of three remnants of the Dúnedain Kingdom of Arnor . They animated the dead bones of the Dúnedain, as well as older bones of Edain from the First Age , which still were buried there. After leaving Tom Bombadil , Frodo Baggins and company are trapped in the Barrow-downs, and nearly killed by
3600-489: The Witch of Endor summon the spirit or ghost of Samuel . The soul and spirit were believed to exist after death, with the ability to assist or harm the living, and the possibility of a second death. Over a period of more than 2,500 years, Egyptian beliefs about the nature of the afterlife evolved constantly. Many of these beliefs were recorded in hieroglyph inscriptions, papyrus scrolls and tomb paintings. The Egyptian Book of
3720-463: The abolition of slavery and women's suffrage . By the late 1880s, credibility of the informal movement weakened, due to accusations of fraud among mediums, and formal Spiritualist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational Spiritualist churches in the United States and United Kingdom. Spiritism, or French spiritualism, is based on
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3840-454: The cittern , becoming the most famous player of this instrument in Sweden. His portrait by Per Krafft shows him playing an oval instrument with twelve strings, arranged as six pairs. His first songs were "parody songs", a common form of entertainment at the time. Between 1769 and 1773, Bellman wrote 65 of 82 of his Epistles, as well as many poems. He attempted to publish the poems in 1772, but
3960-488: The middle and upper classes, while the corresponding movement in continental Europe and Latin America is known as Spiritism . The religion flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion by periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists were women. Most followers supported causes such as
4080-517: The motif index designation E200–E599 ("Ghosts and other revenants"). The English word ghost continues Old English gāst . Stemming from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz , it is cognate with Old Frisian gāst , Old Saxon gēst , Old Dutch gēst , and Old High German geist . Although this form is not attested in North Germanic and East Germanic languages (the equivalent word in Gothic
4200-462: The 65 Fredman's songs ( Fredmans sånger , 1791). Their themes include the pleasures of drunkenness and sex . Against this backdrop, Bellman deals with themes of love, death, and the transitoriness of life. The settings of his songs reflect life in 18th-century Stockholm , but often refer to Greek and Roman mythological characters such as the goddess of love, Venus (or her Swedish equivalent, Fröja ), Neptune and his retinue of water-nymphs,
4320-468: The Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. Ghosts are often depicted as being covered in a shroud and/or dragging chains. A place where ghosts are reported is described as haunted , and often seen as being inhabited by spirits of deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property. Supernatural activity inside homes is said to be mainly associated with violent or tragic events in
4440-544: The Dead compiles some of the beliefs from different periods of ancient Egyptian history. In modern times, the fanciful concept of a mummy coming back to life and wreaking vengeance when disturbed has spawned a whole genre of horror stories and films. Ghosts appeared in Homer 's Odyssey and Iliad , in which they were described as vanishing "as a vapor, gibbering and whining into the earth". Homer's ghosts had little interaction with
4560-480: The Epistles; Britten Austin comments that Ulla is at once a nymph of the taverns and a goddess of a rococo universe of graceful and hot imaginings. The songs are "most ingeniously" set to music, the melodies accentuated by the bold construction of music, word pictures and choice of words, while the music brings out a hidden dimension not seen if the words are simply read as verse. The poems themselves, far from being
4680-490: The Hobbits failed to acquire ancient blades from the barrow-wight's hoard, they awkwardly receive their swords from their travel-companion Aragorn on Weathertop as the party is threatened with imminent attack; he coincidentally happens to be carrying four Hobbit-sized swords with him, despite only expecting to meet Frodo and Sam . Despite their omission from the film trilogy , Barrow-wights appear in games such as The Lord of
4800-646: The Rings " that "barrow-wight" was an "invented name", rather than one like " orc " that existed in Old English. He explained further in a lecture on Beowulf that orcneas ("hell-corpses"), the evil monsters born of Cain and leading to the monster Grendel , meant: that terrible northern imagination to which I have ventured to give the name 'barrow-wights'. The 'undead'. Those dreadful creatures that inhabit tombs and mounds. They are not living: they have left humanity, but they are 'undead'. With superhuman strength and malice they can strangle men and rend them. Glámr in
4920-795: The Rings Roleplaying Game . A barrow-wight features in the low-budget 1991 Russian adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring , Khraniteli , apparently the first moving picture to include the character. Barrow-wights have appeared in the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power . VFX supervisor Jason Smith described their adaptation as "ancient, reanimated heroes, acting for evil against their will." Smith further noted that their character design would reflect their noble status in life as "[k]ings, queens, high-ranking officials", contrasted by their "glowing blue eyes, piercing through
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5040-555: The Scottish wraith (of obscure origin), phantom (via French ultimately from Greek phantasma , compare fantasy ) and apparition . The term shade in classical mythology translates Greek σκιά, or Latin umbra , in reference to the notion of spirits in the Greek underworld . The term poltergeist is a German word, literally a "noisy ghost", for a spirit said to manifest itself by invisibly moving and influencing objects. Wraith
5160-422: The bank job, and seems quickly to have fallen into financial difficulty: "a jungle of debts, sureties and bondsmen began to proliferate around him." The character of bailiff Blomberg appears in his songs (e.g. FS 14), constantly trying to track down debtors and seize all their property. The law allowed the bankrupt only one way to escape from debtors' prison: to leave Sweden. In 1763, Bellman ran away to Norway. From
5280-401: The barrow-dweller fell over on his back with huge din. The Grettis Saga further links the defeat of the barrow-wight to the recovery of an ancient treasure, which comes to the sight of the heir of the house to which it had once belonged: Grettir ... cast down on the table all the treasure he had taken in the barrow; but one matter there was thereof, on which he must needs keep his eyes; this
5400-547: The barrow-wight belongs to "the class of revenants , or 'walking dead'", as in the Grettis saga which Tolkien knew. Peter Jackson omitted barrow-wights from his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy . The humanities scholar Brian Rosebury argues that the removal is acceptable to reduce running time, because the episode does not fundamentally change the story. On the other hand, the Tolkien scholar John D. Rateliff notes that, since
5520-609: The baths at Chaeronea by the ghost of a murdered man. The ghost's loud and frightful groans caused the people of the town to seal up the doors of the building. Another celebrated account of a haunted house from the ancient classical world is given by Pliny the Younger ( c. 50 AD ). Pliny describes the haunting of a house in Athens , which was bought by the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus , who lived about 100 years before Pliny. Knowing that
5640-521: The beach at Långholm, was in Bellman's time called Lilla Sjötullen (The Small Lake-Customs House) where farmers from Lake Mälaren had to pay a toll on the goods they were taking to market in Stockholm's Gamla stan . The place is mentioned in Epistle No. 48, Solen glimmar blank och trind . The Bellman Society ( Bellmansällskapet ), founded in Stockholm on the anniversary of Bellman's birth in 1919, fosters interest in Bellman and supports research into
5760-469: The brilliant improvisations that they appear, are striking in their "formal virtuosity". They may be drinking songs in name, but in structure they are tightly woven into a precise metre, situating the "frenzied bacchanalia within a strict and decorous rococo frame." The musicologist James Massengale writes that the technique of reusing tunes in musical parody had already been overused and had fallen into disrepute by Bellman's time, just as his subject matter
5880-412: The building's past such as murder, accidental death, or suicide—sometimes in the recent or ancient past. However, not all hauntings are at a place of a violent death, or even on violent grounds. Many cultures and religions believe the essence of a being, such as the ' soul ', continues to exist. Some religious views argue that the 'spirits' of those who have died have not 'passed over' and are trapped inside
6000-405: The complexity of the musical-poetic problem; his poems were not simply talented improvisations." and points out that Bellman was "also interested in concealing this complexity", with the discrepancies between the music and the poetry " apparently resolved". Bellman was a gifted entertainer and mimic. He was able to go into a room apart and behind a half-open door mimic twenty or thirty people at
6120-619: The context for these reported visits by the murdered boy. Haunted houses are featured in the 9th-century Arabian Nights (such as the tale of Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad ). Renaissance magic took a revived interest in the occult , including necromancy . In the era of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, there was frequently a backlash against unwholesome interest in
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#17328545767196240-585: The countryside. The Orphei Drängar Vocal Society , named after a phrase in Epistle 14, was founded in Uppsala in 1853; the song became their trademark. The Epistles and Songs were published in chapbooks , sung at festivals and performed in a variety of concerts and entertainments. Figures such as Fredman, Ulla Winblad and Movitz, as well as Bellman himself were painted on tavern walls and memorabilia such as plates, beer tankards and hipflasks . Curiously, Bellman
6360-408: The custom of binding the dead persists, for example, in rural Anatolia . Nineteenth-century anthropologist James Frazer stated in his classic work The Golden Bough that souls were seen as the creature within that animated the body. Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it appears to have been widely held that
6480-417: The dark arts, typified by writers such as Thomas Erastus . The Swiss Reformed pastor Ludwig Lavater supplied one of the most frequently reprinted books of the period with his Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night. The Child Ballad " Sweet William's Ghost " (1868) recounts the story of a ghost returning to his fiancée begging her to free him from his promise to marry her. He cannot marry her because he
6600-418: The dark". The Rings of Power VFX team took the opportunity to reflect on Tolkien's writings, with Smith stating, "The feeling the passages give you is of a doom that is approaching, not by speed but by being indefatigable.... It's a menace that is just going to encroach an inch at a time until you have nowhere to go and you die." Ghost#Terminology In folklore , a ghost is the soul or spirit of
6720-524: The dead food and drink to pacify them, or magical banishment of the deceased to force them not to return. Ritual feeding of the dead is performed in traditions like the Chinese Ghost Festival or the Western All Souls' Day . Magical banishment of the dead is present in many of the world's burial customs . The bodies found in many tumuli ( kurgan ) had been ritually bound before burial, and
6840-465: The dead residing in the spirit world can be contacted by " mediums ", who can then provide information about the afterlife . Spiritualism developed in the United States and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-language countries . By 1897, it was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from
6960-436: The dead was believed to hover near the resting place of the corpse, and cemeteries were places the living avoided. The dead were to be ritually mourned through public ceremony, sacrifice, and libations, or else they might return to haunt their families. The ancient Greeks held annual feasts to honor and placate the spirits of the dead, to which the family ghosts were invited, and after which they were "firmly invited to leave until
7080-817: The debt, knowing he was penniless: he owed a total of almost 4,000 Riksdaler. On 11 February 1795, he died in his sleep in his house in Gamla Kungsholmsbrogatan. He was buried in Klara churchyard with no gravestone, its location now unknown. The Swedish Academy belatedly placed a memorial in the churchyard in 1851, complete with a bronze medallion by Johan Tobias Sergel . King Gustav III called Bellman " Il signor improvisatore " (The master improviser). Bellman has been compared with poets and musicians as diverse as Shakespeare and Beethoven . Åse Kleveland notes that he has been called "Swedish poetry's Mozart , and Hogarth ", observing that The comparison with Hogarth
7200-421: The disease had already killed his mother, and by the winter of 1792, he was seriously ill. As well as being ill, he was imprisoned—after struggling with debts and haunted by the threat of ruin and imprisonment all his life—"for a wretched[ly small] debt of 150 Rdr ". The rumour was that a former Customs colleague, E. G. Nobelius, had had his advances to Louise Bellman rejected, and in revenge had sued Bellman for
7320-447: The existence of an afterlife , as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead, is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms , and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic —are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and
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#17328545767197440-479: The five books of the Spiritist Codification written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the pseudonym Allan Kardec reporting séances in which he observed a series of phenomena that he attributed to incorporeal intelligence (spirits). His assumption of spirit communication was validated by many contemporaries, among them many scientists and philosophers who attended séances and studied
7560-570: The ghosts of animals other than humans have also been recounted. They are believed to haunt particular locations , objects, or people they were associated with in life. According to a 2009 study by the Pew Research Center, 18% of Americans say they have seen a ghost. The overwhelming consensus of science is that there is no proof that ghosts exist. Their existence is impossible to falsify , and ghost hunting has been classified as pseudoscience . Despite centuries of investigation, there
7680-422: The hint was ignored. Deep in debt, at the end of 1757 the family sent Carl Michael to Sweden's central bank Riksbanken as an unpaid trainee. He had no aptitude for numbers, instead discovering the taverns and brothels which were to figure so largely in his songs. As the banking career was not working out – and as trainees were (after a period with a relaxed regime) again required to sit an exam, for which Bellman
7800-517: The historian Michael Roberts . In English, the most thorough treatment of Bellman's life is also by Britten Austin. Van Loon's The Last of the Troubadours: The Life and Music of Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795) was inspired by a visit to Sweden, and tried to introduce the unknown Bellman to an American audience, but critics felt his version of twenty of the songs was "stiff and often ungraceful", not doing justice to their composer. Bellman
7920-422: The hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold. They gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones. Whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in
8040-401: The house was supposedly haunted, Athenodorus intentionally set up his writing desk in the room where the apparition was said to appear and sat there writing until late at night when he was disturbed by a ghost bound in chains. He followed the ghost outside where it indicated a spot on the ground. When Athenodorus later excavated the area, a shackled skeleton was unearthed. The haunting ceased when
8160-472: The human spirit or soul, both of the living and the deceased, the Old English word is used as a synonym of Latin spiritus also in the meaning of "breath" or "blast" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could also denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons; the Anglo-Saxon gospel refers to the demonic possession of Matthew 12:43 as se unclæna gast . Also from the Old English period,
8280-408: The jokes were told by schoolchildren, and often related to bodily functions. The jokes have been studied by anthropologists and psychologists since the 1950s. Stora Henriksvik, also called the Bellman museum ( Bellmanmuseet ) for its small permanent Bellman exhibition, celebrates his life and work with paintings, replica objects and a beachside café in a 17th-century Stockholm house. The place, beside
8400-582: The largest proportion and greatest number of followers. The physician John Ferriar wrote "An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions" in 1813 in which he argued that sightings of ghosts were the result of optical illusions . Later the French physician Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont published On Hallucinations: Or, the Rational History of Apparitions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism, and Somnambulism in 1845 in which he claimed sightings of ghosts were
8520-574: The last prince of Cardolan; Merry 's exclamation on waking from his trance confirms this, as he names Carn Dûm , capital of the Witch-Kingdom of Angmar , continually at war with the Númenórean realms (and as Bombadil later explains): Of course, I remember! The men of Carn Dûm came on us at night, and we were worsted. Ah! The spear in my heart! Bombadil arms the hobbits from the barrow-wight's hoard with what become known as barrow-blades : For each of
8640-533: The living to ask for prayers to end their suffering. Other dead souls returned to urge the living to confess their sins before their own deaths. Medieval European ghosts were more substantial than ghosts described in the Victorian age , and there are accounts of ghosts being wrestled with and physically restrained until a priest could arrive to hear its confession. Some were less solid, and could move through walls. Often they were described as paler and sadder versions of
8760-644: The local priest requested to speak to the boy directly, leading to an extended disquisition on theology. The boy narrated the trauma of death and the unhappiness of his fellow souls in Purgatory, and reported that God was most pleased with the ongoing Crusade against the Cathar heretics, launched three years earlier. The time of the Albigensian Crusade in southern France was marked by intense and prolonged warfare, this constant bloodshed and dislocation of populations being
8880-475: The love-god Cupid , the ferryman Charon and Bacchus , the god of wine and pleasure. Many of Fredman's Epistles are peopled by a cast which includes the clockmaker Jean Fredman , the prostitute or "nymph" Ulla Winblad , the alcoholic ex-soldier Movitz, and Father Berg, a virtuoso on several instruments. Some of these were based on living models, others probably not. Ulla Winblad was widely believed to have been closely based on Maria Kristina Kiellström , though
9000-448: The man and his work. To these ends it organises concerts, lectures, and excursions. It produces the series of Bellmanstudier , starting in 1924, so far running to 24 volumes, as well as facsimile prints of Bellman documents, essay collections, and Yngve Berg 's Bellman porcelain . It has published recordings including Alla Fredmans Epistlar (All Fredman's Epistles) and Alla Fredmans Sånger (All Fredman's Songs). The Society's newsletter
9120-554: The medieval period an apparition of a ghost is recorded from 1211, at the time of the Albigensian Crusade . Gervase of Tilbury , Marshal of Arles , wrote that the image of Guilhem, a boy recently murdered in the forest, appeared in his cousin's home in Beaucaire , near Avignon . This series of "visits" lasted all of the summer. Through his cousin, who spoke for him, the boy allegedly held conversations with anyone who wished, until
9240-411: The memory and personality of the dead person. They traveled to the netherworld, where they were assigned a position, and led an existence similar in some ways to that of the living. Relatives of the dead were expected to make offerings of food and drink to the dead to ease their conditions. If they did not, the ghosts could inflict misfortune and illness on the living. Traditional healing practices ascribed
9360-639: The metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma , which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In the Bible , God is depicted as synthesising Adam , as a living soul, from the dust of the Earth and the breath of God. In many traditional accounts, ghosts were often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance ( vengeful ghosts ), or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of
9480-495: The most beautiful heights flee, there dark Barrow-wights ( griftevårdar ) stand on black hills; and under owls' crying moles, snakes, and martens leave their chambers. Both the barrow-wight and the character Tom Bombadil first appeared in Tolkien's writings in his poem The Adventures of Tom Bombadil , published in the Oxford Magazine of 15 February 1934. Evil spirits were sent to
9600-714: The most interesting piece of literature of the year. Although Fredman's Epistles was neither exactly literature as understood by the academy, nor meeting the standards of elegant taste, the poet and critic Johan Henric Kellgren and the King ensured that Bellman won the prize. After the assassination of the King at the Stockholm opera in 1792, support for the liberal arts was withdrawn. Bellman, already in poor health from alcoholism, went into decline, drinking increasingly heavily. His drinking very likely contributed to his gout , which troubled him badly in 1790. He also caught tuberculosis :
9720-633: The national lottery; this supported him for the rest of his life. On 19 December 1777, at the age of 37, he married the 22-year-old Lovisa Grönlund in Klara Church . They had four children, Gustav, Elis, Karl, and Adolf; Elis died young. Throughout his life, but especially during the 1770s, Bellman also wrote religious poetry, seeing no conflict with his bacchanalian works; he published collections of his religious poems in 1781 and 1787. He wrote some ten plays (none with particularly strong plots) as divertimentos , some of them later serving as entertainments at
9840-524: The other hand used figuratively of any shadowy outline, or fuzzy or unsubstantial image; in optics, photography , and cinematography especially, a flare, secondary image, or spurious signal. The synonym spook is a Dutch loanword, akin to Low German spôk (of uncertain etymology); it entered the English language via American English in the 19th century. Alternative words in modern usage include spectre (altn. specter ; from Latin spectrum ),
9960-400: The people of the city, with at least a modest salary. In 1768, his life's work as we now know it got under way: Bellman had begun to compose an entirely new sort of song. A genre which 'had no model and can have no successors' ( Kellgren ), these songs were to grow swiftly in number until they made up the great work on which Bellman's reputation as a poet chiefly rests. Bellman mostly played
10080-423: The person they had been while alive, and dressed in tattered gray rags. The vast majority of reported sightings were male. There were some reported cases of ghostly armies, fighting battles at night in the forest, or in the remains of an Iron Age hillfort, as at Wandlebury , near Cambridge, England. Living knights were sometimes challenged to single combat by phantom knights, which vanished when defeated. From
10200-415: The phenomena. His work was later extended by writers like Leon Denis , Arthur Conan Doyle , Camille Flammarion , Ernesto Bozzano , Chico Xavier , Divaldo Pereira Franco, Waldo Vieira, Johannes Greber , and others. Spiritism has adherents in many countries throughout the world, including Spain, United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, England, Argentina, Portugal, and especially Brazil, which has
10320-465: The popular classical expectation of how a ghost should look. In the 5th century AD, the Christian priest Constantius of Lyon recorded an instance of the recurring theme of the improperly buried dead who come back to haunt the living, and who can only cease their haunting when their bones have been discovered and properly reburied. Ghosts reported in medieval Europe tended to fall into two categories:
10440-543: The property where their memories and energy are strong. There are many references to ghosts in Mesopotamian religions – the religions of Sumer , Babylon , Assyria , and other early states in Mesopotamia . Traces of these beliefs survive in the later Abrahamic religions that came to dominate the region. The concept of ghosts may predate many belief systems . Ghosts were thought to be created at time of death, taking on
10560-405: The real woman, a silk worker once arrested for alleged prostitution, was not the ideal romantic figure of Bellman's songs. Fredman's songs also include Old Testament figures such as Noah and Judith . Bellman achieved his effects of rococo elegance and humour through precisely organised incongruity. For example, Epistle 25, " Blåsen nu alla !" (All blow now!), begins with Venus crossing
10680-401: The result of hallucinations . David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that ball lightning could cause inanimate objects to move erratically. Carl Michael Bellman Carl Michael Bellman ( Swedish pronunciation: [ˈkɑːɭ ˈmîːkaɛl ˈbɛ̌lːman] ; 4 February 1740 – 11 February 1795) was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer. He
10800-551: The ringleader, leading them (the Bank wrote) into "gambling, masquerades, picnics and suchlike". Bellman resigned, his safe banking career at an end. In 1765, Bellman's parents died; deeply moved, he wrote a religious poem. Then his fortunes improved: someone found him a job, first in the Office of Manufactures, then in the Customs, and he was able once again to live happily in Stockholm, observing
10920-454: The royal court. The plays fill Volume 6 of his collected works. In 1783, Bellman brought out The Temple of Bacchus ( Bacchi Tempel ), perhaps hoping to establish his reputation as a poet, rather than the merry entertainer that he was in fact known as at the time; but he always stood out in people's minds as unique, a different kind of writer and performer. Bellman's main works are the 82 Fredman's epistles ( Fredmans epistlar , 1790) and
11040-551: The safety of Halden (then called Fredrikshald) he writes to the Council applying first for a passport, and then for a safe-conduct, both of which were granted. Meanwhile, his father had first mortgaged the Lilla Daurerska house, and then sold it: the family's finances were no better than his own. Even worse, by April 1764 the Bank had become tired of the riotous behaviour of its young men: its investigations showed that Bellman had been
11160-405: The same time next year." The 5th-century BC play Oresteia includes an appearance of the ghost of Clytemnestra , one of the first ghosts to appear in a work of fiction. The ancient Romans believed a ghost could be used to exact revenge on an enemy by scratching a curse on a piece of lead or pottery and placing it into a grave. Plutarch , in the 1st century AD, described the haunting of
11280-556: The same time, a crowd pushing its way on to one of the Djurgården ferries, perhaps, or the uproarious atmosphere of a seaman's tavern. The illusion was so startling, his listeners could have sworn a mob of 'shoe-polishers, customs spies, seamen ... coalmen, washerwomen ... herring packers, tailors and bird-catchers' had burst into the next room. In 1790, the Swedish Academy awarded Bellman its annual Lundblad prize of 50 Riksdaler for
11400-556: The skeleton was given a proper reburial. The writers Plautus and Lucian also wrote stories about haunted houses. In the New Testament , according to Luke 24:37–39, following his resurrection , Jesus was forced to persuade the Disciples that he was not a ghost (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believed he
11520-488: The soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to clothing the person wore. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the Egyptian Book of the Dead , which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress. While deceased ancestors are universally regarded as venerable, and often believed to have
11640-478: The souls of the dead, or demons. The souls of the dead returned for a specific purpose. Demonic ghosts existed only to torment or tempt the living. The living could tell them apart by demanding their purpose in the name of Jesus Christ. The soul of a dead person would divulge its mission, while a demonic ghost would be banished at the sound of the Holy Name. Most ghosts were souls assigned to Purgatory , condemned for
11760-565: The story of Grettir the strong is a well-known example. However, the term was used by Andrew Lang in his 1891 Essays in Little , where he wrote "In the graves where treasures were hoarded the Barrowwights dwelt, ghosts that were sentinels over the gold." Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris used it, too, in their 1869 translation of Grettis saga , which features a fight with the "barrow-wight" or "barrow-dweller", Kárr: Everything in their way
11880-514: The sun. When, much later, Pippin offers his service to the Steward of Gondor , Denethor , the old man examines his sword and asks "Whence came this? ... Many, many years lie on it. Surely this is a blade wrought by our own kindred in the North in the deep past?" The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that it is a "great moment" when Merry awakens in the barrow from the wight's spell and "remembers only
12000-412: The supernatural. Another widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists link this idea to early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person (the person's spirit), most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. This belief may have also fostered
12120-433: The tradition of solo performance of his songs died out, Par Bricole continued to perform his songs as choral pieces. Bellman's poetry continued to be read and sung throughout the 19th century, contrary to the widespread belief among researchers that he was largely forgotten during this period. His songs were sung especially by the urban bourgeoisie and in fraternities, but also in aristocratic circles and ordinary people in
12240-506: The water, as in François Boucher 's Triumph of Venus , but when she disembarks, Bellman transforms her into a lustful Ulla Winblad . Similarly, the ornate and civilized minuet melody of " Ack du min Moder " (Alas, thou my mother) contrasts with the text: Fredman is lying with a hangover in the gutter outside a tavern, complaining bitterly about life. Ulla Winblad ("vineleaf") recurs through
12360-485: The word could denote the spirit of God, viz. the " Holy Ghost ". The now-prevailing sense of "the soul of a deceased person, spoken of as appearing in a visible form" only emerges in Middle English (14th century). The modern noun does, however, retain a wider field of application, extending on one hand to "soul", "spirit", " vital principle ", " mind ", or " psyche ", the seat of feeling, thought, and moral judgement; on
12480-466: The word in the naming of the creatures known as the Ringwraiths has influenced later usage in fantasy literature. Bogey or bogy/bogie is a term for a ghost, and appears in Scottish poet John Mayne 's Hallowe'en in 1780. A revenant is a deceased person returning from the dead to haunt the living, either as a disembodied ghost or alternatively as an animated (" undead ") corpse. Also related
12600-525: The world of the living. Periodically they were called upon to provide advice or prophecy, but they do not appear to be particularly feared. Ghosts in the classical world often appeared in the form of vapor or smoke, but at other times they were described as being substantial, appearing as they had been at the time of death, complete with the wounds that killed them. By the 5th century BC, classical Greek ghosts had become haunting, frightening creatures who could work to either good or evil purposes. The spirit of
12720-540: The world, the hero arranges for the burial of a dead man. Soon after, he gains a companion who aids him and, in the end, the hero's companion reveals that he is in fact the dead man . Instances of this include the Italian fairy tale " Fair Brow " and the Swedish " The Bird 'Grip' ". Spiritualism is a monotheistic belief system or religion , postulating a belief in God , but with a distinguishing feature of belief that spirits of
12840-684: Was a ghost (spirit) when they saw him walking on water . One of the first persons to express disbelief in ghosts was Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century AD. In his satirical novel The Lover of Lies (c. 150 AD), he relates how Democritus "the learned man from Abdera in Thrace " lived in a tomb outside the city gates to prove that cemeteries were not haunted by the spirits of the departed. Lucian relates how he persisted in his disbelief despite practical jokes perpetrated by "some young men of Abdera" who dressed up in black robes with skull masks to frighten him. This account by Lucian notes something about
12960-407: Was a short sword, so good a weapon, that a better, he said, he had never seen; and this he gave up the last of all. Thorfinn was blithe to see that sword, for it was an heirloom of his house, and had never yet gone out of his kin. "Whence came these treasures to thine hand?" said Thorfinn. The Grettis Saga calls the undead monsters Glámr and Kárr haugbúar ("mound-dwellers", singular haugbúi ;
13080-527: Was born on 4 February 1740 in the Stora Daurerska house, which was one of the finest in the Södermalm district of Stockholm . The house was the property of his maternal grandmother, Catharina von Santen, who had brought up his father, orphaned as a small child. Carl Michael's parents were Johan Arndt Bellman, a civil servant, and Catharina Hermonia, daughter of the priest of the local Maria parish . Her family
13200-891: Was celebrated at least as enthusiastically in polite and abstemious circles, though with bowdlerized versions of the songs. Major interpreters of Bellman's songs include Sven-Bertil Taube , who helped to start the 1960s Bellman renaissance; Fred Åkerström , who brought a fresh earthiness to Bellman interpretation; and the Dutch-born Cornelis Vreeswijk , who fitted Bellman to the style of American blues . Other recordings have been made by Evert Taube , and as rock music by Joakim Thåström , Candlemass or Marduk . They are also performed as choral music and as drinking songs . Martin Bagge has recreated Bellman's dramatic style complete with period costume. In 2020, Uppsala stadsteater and Västmanlands Teater created Bellman 2.0 ,
13320-505: Was ill-equipped – he took a break in 1758, going to Uppsala University , where Linnaeus was professor of botany. The idea of attending lectures was no more congenial than banking, and he stayed only one term; one of his songs (FS 28) records that "He contemplated Uppsala —the beer stung his mouth—love distracted his wits..." However, he met young men (such as Carl Bonde ) from wealthy and noble families, went drinking with them, and started to entertain them with his songs. Bellman returned to
13440-416: Was initially looked down on. Despite this, Massengale argues Bellman chose to perfect his musical-poetic vehicle. He refers to the result ... not as 'parody' but as 'den muçiska Poesien', [musical poetry] ... Bellman's exceptional case, then, is that of a poetic genius who worked with an art form which in the hands of others was usually insignificant. Massengale observes that Bellman was "fully aware of
13560-412: Was kicked out of place, the barrow-wight setting on with hideous eagerness; Grettir gave back before him for a long time, till at last it came to this, that he saw it would not do to hoard his strength any more; now neither spared the other, and they were brought to where the horse-bones were, and thereabout they wrestled long. And now one, now the other, fell on his knee; but the end of the strife was, that
13680-406: Was no accident. Like the English portrait painter, Bellman drew detailed pictures of his time in his songs, not so much of life at court as of ordinary people's everyday. Paul Britten Austin says instead simply that: Bellman is unique among great poets, I think, in that virtually his entire opus is conceived to music. Other poets, of course, notably our Elizabethans, have written songs. But song
13800-866: Was one of the first to translate Bellman into Danish. Bellman's songs have been translated and recorded in Icelandic (by Bubbi ), Italian, French, Finnish (for instance by Vesa-Matti Loiri ), Russian, Chuvash and Yiddish . English interpretations have been recorded by William Clauson , Martin Best , Freddie Langrind made some Norwegian translations in 2008. Sven-Bertil Taube, Roger Hinchliffe and Martin Bagge. Schoolchildren two hundred years on still learn some of his songs, and several including Gubben Noak and Fjäriln vingad are known by heart by many Swedes. Books in English with translations of Bellman's work have been written by Charles Wharton Stork in 1917, Hendrik Willem van Loon in 1939, Paul Britten Austin , and
13920-443: Was only one branch of their art. They did not leave behind, as Bellman did, a great musical-literary work nor paint in words and music a canvas of their age. Nor are their songs dramatic. Bellman's informal Bacchi Orden (Order of Bacchus) was replaced in the 1770s by the more structured Bacchanalian society Par Bricole , which still exists in the 21st century. It enabled Bellman to publish his book Bacchi Tempel in 1783. When
14040-512: Was shown on earlier Swedish stamps in 1940 and 1990, commemorating the 200th and 250th anniversaries of his birth, and again in 2006. Bellmansgatan in Stockholm's Södermalm district is named for Bellman; Stieg Larsson places the apartment of his Millennium trilogy hero Mikael Blomkvist in Bellmansgatan, which Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer suggest is meant to provide Bellman associations. Swedish schoolchildren tell Bellman jokes about
14160-476: Was the subject of an 1844 ballet choreographed by August Bournonville . Bellman features as a character, along with Ulla Winblad and King Gustav III, in the first episode of the Swedish television series "Nisse Hults historiska snedsteg" (Nisse Hult's historical slips) by SVT Drama. Bellman appears with his cittern and various objects from Fredman's Epistles and Fredman's Songs on a 100 Swedish kronor postage stamp issued in 2014 and designed by Beata Boucht; he
14280-418: Was unable to obtain the permission of the king, Gustav III , as a political coup intervened. He finally managed to obtain the permission in 1774, but soon discovered that the cost of printing, especially as he was determined to publish the sheet music alongside the text, was prohibitive given his ruinous finances, and he was forced to put off his plans. In 1776, the king gave him a sinecure job as secretary to
14400-428: Was wholly Swedish, whereas Johan's family had German origins: they had come from Bremen in about 1660. When Carl Michael was four the family moved to a smaller, single storey dwelling called the Lilla Daurerska house. He briefly went to a local school, but was educated mainly by private tutors. He was the eldest of 15 children who lived long enough for their births to be registered. His parents had intended him to become
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