In Old High German and in Old English, geist and gaest did not designate a revenant as geist and ghost do today, and scato, "the shadow, did not apply to phantoms. We can deduce from this that revenants were not evanescent: they were not images or mists, but flesh and blood individuals, which is confirmed by the Norse literature and the rare texts from other Germanic countries.

In the village of Amarasti, in the north of Dolj (Romania), the sons of a dead woman cut their mother in two because she washaunting the region. When the body was exhumed a second time, it was noted that the corpse was intact!

To fade away at the end of a long life is a blessing from the gods; to die prematurely is a curse.

The great lesson of pagan and Christian texts can be spelled out in a few words: "Help the dead; they will return the favor.