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.

The noun fylgja, formed from the verb "to follow, to accompany" (fylgja), referred in some ways to an individual's double, comparable to the Egyptian Ka and the Greek eidolon. It was a kind of guardian angel that took the form of a female entity (fylgjukona) or an animal that protected the family or person it had adopted.

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

In England, a portion of land called "the good man's field" (gudeman's croft) was allowed to survive into the seventeenth century. This was a piece of land that was never plowed or planted and was instead allowed to lie fallow. No one harbored any doubt that it was reserved for some spirit or demon. What we have in gudeman is not the adjective good but the Anglo-Saxon noun god (the Germanic Guda).

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

Ancient Norse texts spoke of three kingdoms of the dead: that of Ran, the sea goddess with the evocative name meaning "theft" or "pillage" about whom we know almost nothing;' that of Hel, goddess of the infernal regions; and that of Odin, Valhöll (Richard Wagner's Valhalla) in other words, "the Paradise of warriors.

The texts are unanimous on one point: the dead do not like being summoned back.