Nachzehrer
Revenant in German folklore
In German folklore, a Nachzehrer (German: [ˈnaːxˌt͡seːʁɐ] , literally "after-consumer" (a creature that consumes from the afterlife) in German; also spelt Nachtzehrer, literally "night-consumer") is a type of Wiedergänger (revenant), which was believed to be able to drag the living after it into death, either through malice or through the desire to be closer to its loved ones through various means.
The word Nachzehrer came to use in the nineteenth century, but belief in the creature the label is applied to precedes this by several centuries. The nachzehrer was prominent in the folklore of the northern regions of Germany, but also in Silesia and Bavaria, and the word was also used to describe a similar creature of the Kashubes of Northern Poland. The nachzehrer was similar to the Slavic vampire in that it was known to be a recently deceased person who returned from the grave to attack family and village acquaintances.
Overview
A nachzehrer was thought to be able to drain their victim's life-force remotely. This could involve devouring their own funeral shrouds and clothing – thought to be a very common sign of a nachzehrer. The danger was thought to be particularly great if the living had given the deceased some of their own possessions (e.g. as grave goods). Another belief was that if a person's name was not removed from their burial clothing, that person would be a candidate for becoming a nachzehrer. Open eyes or mouths, red lips, and a soft corpse were all seen as signs of a nachzehrer.
The public source identifies “Nachzehrer” as revenant in German folklore. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nachzehrer, Revenant and German.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nachzehrer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.