Ghoul
The ghoul is a desert demon of Arabian folklore that became, in European hands, an eater of corpses. It is not itself undead, but its association with graveyards and human flesh made 'ghoul' the natural English word for anything that feeds on the dead. English writers from Beckford to Lovecraft developed it into a grave-robbing creature that lives on dead human flesh. It is included here as a neighbour of the zombie rather than a member of the family.1
- a sword stroke, as in the story of the caliph Umar
- reciting the call to prayer
What the sources say
The name comes from an Arabic root meaning 'to seize'1
It robs graves and eats the dead, and can take the form of the person it has most recently eaten1
Usually appears as a woman to draw male travellers away1
The cemetery-dwelling corpse-eater familiar in the West was fixed by Antoine Galland's French translation of the Thousand and One Nights1
Not mentioned in the Quran, though it appears in hadith; the rationalist Mu'tazilites denied it existed1
Could you outrun it?
Speed class from how the sources describe it (varies), not a measurement.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at hello@zombiewiki.app.
Pocong
Ro-langs
Toyol
Xiangxi walking corpses
Condenado
Corpo-seco