File No. 050 of 446
Nachzehrer
Also called: Nachtzehrer, shroud eater
The Nachzehrer is the German shroud-eater, a corpse that kills without getting up. By chewing its grave clothes it was thought to drag its surviving relatives after it one by one, by malice or simply from wanting company. The belief gave communities a reason to open graves during outbreaks of disease and helped shape learned debate about the 'masticating dead' in the 18th century. It represents the stationary end of the revenant spectrum, where the corpse is dangerous but does not walk.12
First recorded
1800
The word dates from the 19th century; the belief is several centuries olderOrigin
German
Germany, PolandWhat causes it
A bad death or burial
Folk explanations blame mistakes at burial, such as giving the dead some of the living's own belongings.How you become one
Burying a person with grave goods taken from the living, or with their name still on the burial clothes, was thought to risk it.
How it moves
Barely moves
It need not leave the grave at all: lying there, it chews its shroud and draws the life out of its kin at a distance.Intelligence
Some intelligence
When did it first appear?
Ancient world
Middle Ages
1500 to 1899
1900 to 1967
1968 to 1999
2000 to 2009
2010 to today
1800The word dates from the 19th century; the belief is several centuries older
field notes
What the sources say
Sources
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Strzyga
Upiór
Pień padlocked burial
Shoemaker of Breslau
Wiedergänger
Aufhocker
Jiangshi
Zombi (Haitian)
Strigoi
Vampir (South Slavic)
Abhartach
Arnold Paole