In many cultures a living human being consists of two parts, the body and the soul. The soul can be divided into two parts. In old Scandinavian folklore the first part is called the huge, the drive and basic will. The second part of the soul is our memory, the personality we have developed. But for the soul's second part, we have lost the word. Odin's raven, Munin gives us a clue. Many researchers claim that this word can find in the English language, which has many words that are borrowed from the Old Norse. The name Munin is perhaps related to the English word "immune". Immune describes the inability to absorb anything beyond what we were born with. Im in the English language creates an antonym of a word. As an example, immaterial, as opposed to material, but the English antonyms to immune is susceptible, receptive or vulnerable. We can therefore assume that at some time in the history of the English language, there has been a word that was similar to the Old Norse name Munin, and described the ability to absorb things. This word could have been mune.

So, we now have the a definition of human life that is divided in the body, also called hamn or shape, and the soul that is divided into the huge, and what we in this article will refer to as mune.

Huge stands for drive, the initial cravings, hunger and sexual desire, the need to move forward. Mune is the memory, the properties we acquire, that what makes us who we are.

When we try to understand the concept of undeadness, the understanding of the concept of huge and mune is of great benefit. A body without mune becomes what in Scandinavian folklore was called a Draug, a creature also known as a ghoul. A dead body that was kept alive by its basic instincts, but almost completely lacked traces of the mind of the person that the body once belonged to. Throughout the world there are stories of walking corpses that rush through the world of the living like raging animals, driven by their primal needs and searching for the few things they remember about the life they once lived. On the other hand, we have ghosts, spirits, who has retained all their memories, but have lost their bodies.

The many faces of the undead.

Many other strange phenomena such as shape shifting, is also based on these ideas of the dualistic soul. As an example, when a shape shifters turns into a werewolf, they transfer their mune to a wolf. The new soul is then a fusion of the shape shifters mune, and the wolf's huge. A werewolf can therefore be described as a human intelligence in a wolf's body with a wolf's instincts.

Mune, memory, is something that must be formed during a long time. It is the sum of a living being´s accumulated memories and experiences. It cannot be created artificially.

When a magician creates an artificial living being, they can therefore only give it huge. A golem, that has an animated body made from clay, can only perform simple tasks and must always have clear instructions. It has no mind, no self-awareness.

To activate a Golem the Hebrew word Emet is used. Emet stands for God's primordial will, God's driving force, but also the human soul's most primitive instincts. A golem has huge, but has no mune. An example from literature that describes this phenomenon in an excellent way, is Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein creates a body of flesh and blood but he only succeeds in providing it with huge. Once he understands that real life cannot exist with half a soul, it is already too late...

The Haitian Zombie has been deprived its mune through the use of vodou  and is only a body with the ability to move. A kind of golem constructed out of a human body. 

The Haitian Bizango priests are known to drug their zombies to dampen their huge. In Haiti, there are also several examples of how mune completely or partially has returned to an undead body and thereby restoring it to life. In most cases these people lose their minds, and never fully recover.

Ghosts and immaterial spirits seem to be the opposite of the Draug, the zombie and the vampire. Incorporeal ghosts have a very strong mune, but no huge. They do not need to eat or sleep, but often have all their memories from their lifetime. Some ghosts have through a traumatic death lost their minds, but nevertheless have very strong bonds to the person they once were. There are of course exceptions. For instance the so-called poltergeist who is a immaterial being, but displays a behaviour pattern that is completely different from normal ghosts. Many believe that the explanation for this is post euthanasic stress, but much research remains to be done.

Although the term Draug disappears sometime during the Middle Ages, these creatures continue to haunt the living in isolated regions. The dreaded Takstainarn on The island of Gotland, the wealthy farmer Pellikka and old Vittiko from Tornedalen in northern Sweden, who all lost their mune, but by an extremely strong huge managed to roam amongst the living after their deaths. 

Even in the 20^th century there are numerous reports about of corpses who physically rise from their coffins or graves, and like mindless fools start to terrorize their surroundings. In densely populated areas, both the living and the undead have strong interest in ensuring the swift destruction of these creatures, and they are therefore extremely rare in such areas.

Sometimes the huge so strong that it can keep a body alive, even though it has started to decompose due to a lack of real life. However, there are many cases where the dead body in a strange way is regenerated when the undead are developing their mune, their memory and their personality. The famous Tornedalen draug Pellika began, after a period of undeadness, be able to carry out conversations and even regained vague memories of his previous life.

This type of creature is completely dependent on their body. The only way to stop these undead rampages is by compromising their physical body. Methods to destroy the undead will vary from case to case, but the procedures are remarkably consistent all over the world. Examples of such methods are the removal of the head, turning the body upside down in the grave, impaling the body with wooden stakes or cremating the body. Vittiko and Pellikka were turned upside down in their graves and bound with spells by the local priest. In many cases, the heads of executed criminals have been carefully placed at the grave's foot side to prevent them from returning from the grave.

However, studies have shown that certain personality traits that are very deeply rooted in a human´s soul, can survive in the undead creature's instincts. Basic components of mune can thus become a part of huge. Wrath is an example of a trait that often accompanies the deceased to the other side.

The Eastern European vampires are basically the same creature as the Norse Draug. Eyewitness accounts of vampires describe very clearly that the person who once had been associated with the vampire's body no longer exists, leaving only the original impulses that the body once had. However, we have come to associate vampires only with the type of undead who developed a personality, a mune.

To drink blood.

The type of undead we call vampires do not seem to be completely dependent on the consumption of blood to survive, they do it because they initially have a tremendous strong desire to hunt and eat. They are also able eat meat, but the undead´s almost non-existent body functions make it difficult to digest solid food. A living person would have difficulty surviving on a diet of pure blood, but the undead have a very low metabolism, which makes blood a very suitable sustenance for them. For many vampires, the drinking of human blood has a ritual significance, an act that puts them above humans in the food chain.

An immortal personality.

There are many examples of undead who have developed a personality, which is by no means surprising. All a living creature needs to acquire a memory is time. If you give an undead enough time it will be able to blend in at a cocktail party at any time.

Here we are approaching the state where the concept of undeadness becomes very confusing, and arguably should be repealed. A living dead with memories and a personality has all the requirements of a living creature; it has just undergone a strange mental re-birth. In many older members of the undead society, it is notable how their huge is declining as their personality is developing. The desire to hunt, kill and eat decreases as their "human" characteristics are developing.

The strange thing about all this is that what really distinguishes undead with mune from ordinary living people is the undead's inability to die from normal causes such as disease and old age. They also seem to have strong resistance to physical injuries. This is why the common definition of undeadness and the undead is strangely indistinct.

The undead with strong mune, which are often referred to as vampires, has proven to be a surprisingly minor problem in modern society. The undead nations in Europe, Asia, Africa and America work hard to control their population and keep a low profile. There is, however, fear amongst both the Undead nations and the International community of a major outbreak of uncontrolled undeadness An situation that in popular culture has come to be known as The Zombie Apocalypse.

The causes.

Nobody has in a satisfactory way been able to fully explain undeadness, its mechanisms and causes. On the other hand, the same can be said about life.

Undeadness is attributed to different causes in different cultures. One common factor is usually that humans seem to be the most receptive to undeadness in the exact moment between life and death. 

The ancient Egyptians also feared for the moment when the dead returned to life in the afterlife. At that time, body and soul were vulnerable, and an incorporeal spirit in search of a new body could easily steal the body. The Haitian Bizango necromantics need access to the body at the exact right moment to be able to create a zombie.

Many European noblemen and other high society people made sure that their bodies would be "incapacitated" before they were buried. Alfred Nobel wrote in his will that his throat and wrists would be cut immediately after his death. This approach is well-known in many other cultures where there is fear of an uncertain death.

Usually it takes about three to four days for the undead life form to evolve. Many Western cultures therefore have traditions and laws, which require that the deceased must wait at least three days to be buried. In places where undeadness has been a major problem there are strong traditions of holding a wake.

Undeadness is mostly spread through transfer of body fluids from an undead. It is established that the Haitian Bizango priests use body parts of zombies as an ingredient in the powder they use to create new undead. Those who are “infected" by undeadness before their death seem to more often be able to develop their mune, their personality. The longer the period between death and the resurrection of the body, the stronger the undead seems driven by its huge. According to well-informed sources, it is rarely successful to create an undead from a body that has been deceased for more than 3 days. Many undead also seem to be suffering from severe post euthanasiatic stress caused by a traumatic death.

The Zombie apocalypse.

A pandemic of uncontrolled undeadness has been found to be a very serious threat to our society. A creature that is driven solely by its basic instincts is very dangerous to his surroundings.

Many such creatures can cause tremendous damage if the outbreak is not controlled. As undeadness often seems to spread through bodily fluids, the aggressive behaviour of the infected makes the plague spread very rapidly in large populations. To this date, concerted efforts by both the undead nations and the international community have prevented major outbreaks, but due to the global urbanization and local overpopulation the risk of uncontrolled outbreaks is increasing. Many experts believe such an outbreak is inevitable.

O. Hejll, Curator.

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