The Tradition of Household Spirits by Claude Lecouteux

Author:Claude Lecouteux
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spirituality/Folklore
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2002-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Dwarf as housekeeper, Haslach (Germany), twentieth century (photograph by C. Lecouteux)

The Spirits and the Dead

“The first dead inhabitant can change into a house spirit,” notes Martti Haavio for Finland. Hans F. Feilberg confirms this for the Scandinavian countries, but Lauri Honko notes that this is never the case in Ångermanland.19 Eugène Rolland cites a testimony from Finistère in Brittany that says: “The sprites of the stables are former farmhands. When still alive, they neglected the horses entrusted to them; after they died, they were condemned to take care of them.”20 Throughout my research I have been continually come across clues that imply a close connection between the domestic spirit and the dead man. Eventually, this caught my attention and posed new questions. Let’s now examine some of the more significant traces.

Among the Wallachians, the zimt is the feast of the household gods—each hearth has one—and the ancestors. The house is cleaned, the table set, friends are invited, and the memory of the departed is also celebrated at this time. These deceased are invited to sit at the table where there are empty chairs reserved for them.21

In Bulgaria, at the Feast of the Dead, offerings are placed in the hearth while saying: “Rejoice, master of the house,”22 In Germany, the souls of the dead intentionally remain close to the furnace, the habitual residence for spirits, while in Switzerland, traditions collected at the beginning of the twentieth century by Josef Müller in the canton of Uri, tell us that souls in torment stay, in front of, behind, or inside the stove.23 The dead also live in the doors24 and in the block of wood forming the lintel, and the following is asserted:

Someone who knocks down an old house in the Schächental (Uri) and builds a new one, should never take the lintel block, which should have holes bored into it, otherwise the spirits and misfortune of the demolished house will enter the new one.25

In Estonia, Jacob Grimm informs us that “food for the dead is left on the floor of one room. The master of the house enters there late in the evening with a long torch and urges them to eat, calling them by name. Some time later, when he thinks they have eaten their fill, he commands them, while breaking his torch on the lintel, to return whence they came and to avoid stepping upon their robes while returning. If the harvest was poor, it was attributed to the poor hospitality shown the souls of the dead.”26 It so happens that this rite matches the one intended to propitiate the house spirits. Almost everywhere, the spirit behaves like a “white lady” (banshee) and heralds the death of the master of the house.27 It is often confused with the rapping spirit (poltergeist) who is most often a dead person who reveals his or her presence by various noises.28

The sixteenth-century Zimmern Chronicle states, when speaking of erdemenle and wichtenmendle: “Many believe they are men who were once cursed and hope to find

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