Death aid

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Depiction of help for the dead ( cemetery chapel Westerndorf am Wasen from 1691)

Folklore and art historians use the word help for the dead or the motif of the grateful dead to refer to help that the living experience from the dead - a recurring motif in legends , sagas and fairy tales . Iconographically , the motif of helping the dead is particularly widespread in evidence of folk art of the 17th and 18th centuries. The word stands for the last service to the deceased with a different meaning, especially in Old Norse literature .

Service and help for the dead

The idea of ​​helping the dead corresponds to a reciprocal give and take: "Service to the dead" is seen as a service that the living render to the dead, while "Help for the dead" is seen as an act of gratitude by the dead for the living. In this context, the belief that the prayers of the living, especially in the context of memorials , contribute to shortening the time of the poor souls in purgatory plays a central role . In legends and the corresponding iconography, these often turn out to be "grateful and helping dead".

A relevant legend goes back to Caesarius von Heisterbach : A knight made it a habit to pray for the dead in cemeteries. Once, when he was being pursued by enemies, he took refuge in a cemetery - where the armed dead climbed out of the graves and rushed to his aid. About the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine - here the tools with which the dead fight indicate their profession in life - the legend was widespread in the late Middle Ages. Votive pictures with this topos can be found in the cemetery chapel Westerndorf am Wasen and in the Kolberg Cathedral .

Help for the dead in legend and fairy tales

The death aid motif occurs particularly often in legends. The researcher of fairy tales, myths and legends, Heino Gehrts , cites examples from Lower Franconia, Valais, Allgäu and Jutland, but also from China.

In the area of ​​fairy tales, Heino Gehrts points out the often decisive role of wonderful helpers. According to Gehrts, these helpers appear explicitly as dead in a few types of fairy tales. He highlights two examples: the fairy tale of the traveling companion and the Cinderella fairy tale. For his fairy tale Der Reisekamerad , Hans Christian Andersen used the following type of fairy tale, which has been handed down in many versions: A young boy does a dead man's service; on his subsequent wandering he is overtaken by a strange man who offers him the companionship; this traveling companion gives the young lad essential support; finally (sometimes even before) he reveals himself to be a grateful dead person. But also the Cinderella fabric with the helping deceased mother stands for a "fairytale type with help for the dead".

Last service to the deceased

The motif of helping the dead or corpse as the last service to the deceased is particularly prominent in the Icelandic sagas of the 13th and 14th centuries. As a duty of care, it was necessary to close the dead man's eyes, nostrils and lips, wash and comb him. The Scandinavian Felix Niedner writes: “It was an absolute duty for the relatives to grant the deceased assistance. His lips and nostrils were closed so that the soul could more easily escape from the body. ”Niedner justifies this custom with the belief in revenants :“ The Icelandic sagas are teeming with malicious dead and ghosts, which return with disgrace and often only with great effort final rest can be brought ”.

literature

  • Heino Gehrts: From the dead and from service to the dead. In: Heino Gehrts: The "other" world and wisdom. Writings on research into fairy tales, myths and legends, Vol. 4. Collected essays 4 . Igel Verlag Literatur & Wissenschaft, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-86815-715-4 , pp. 11–28.
  • Heino Gehrts: Helping dead in fairy tales, sagas and everyday life. In: Heino Gehrts: The "other" world and wisdom. Writings on research into fairy tales, myths and legends, Vol. 4. Collected essays 4 . Igel Verlag Literatur & Wissenschaft, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-86815-715-4 , pp. 29–50.
  • Felix Niedner: Iceland's culture during the Viking Age . Diederichs, Jena 1913.
  • Günther Thomann: The poor souls in popular belief and custom in the old Bavarian and Upper Palatinate region. Studies on popular piety of the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg (Hrsg.): Negotiations of the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg . Part I : 110: 115-179 (1970); Part II : 111: 95-167 (1971); Part III : Vol. 112 (1972), pp. 173–261 (digital copies on www.heimatforschung-regensburg.de, as of July 21, 2018).
  • Ruth Vogelsang: Grateful dead. On the motive of helping the dead. In: fairytale mirror. Journal for international fairy tale research and storytelling, vol. 12 (01/2001), pp. 27/28; Vol. 13 (02/2001), pp. 63-66.

Web links

Commons : Grateful Dead in Art  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Günther Thomann: The poor souls in popular belief and folk custom of the old Bavarian and Upper Palatinate area. Studies on popular piety of the 19th and 20th centuries. Part I . In: Negotiations of the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg , Vol. 110 (1970), pp. 115–179, here: p. 155.
  2. ↑ The terms "Totendienst" and "Totenhilfe" appear in the following articles in the heading or in the first sentence: Heino Gehrts: Von den Toten und vom Totendienst. In: Heino Gehrts: The “other” world and wisdom , pp. 11–28; Heino Gehrts; Helping dead in fairy tales, legends and everyday life. In: Heino Gehrts: The “other” world and wisdom , pp. 29–50.
  3. ↑ Günther Thomann: The poor souls in popular belief and folk custom of the old Bavarian and Upper Palatinate area. Studies on popular piety of the 19th and 20th centuries. Part I . In: Negotiations of the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg , Vol. 110 (1970), pp. 115–179, here: p. 161.
  4. ↑ Günther Thomann: The poor souls in popular belief and folk custom of the old Bavarian and Upper Palatinate area. Studies on popular piety of the 19th and 20th centuries. Part I . In: Negotiations of the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg , Vol. 110 (1970), pp. 115–179, here: pp. 161–163.
  5. ↑ Heino Gehrts; Helping dead in fairy tales, legends and everyday life. In: Heino Gehrts: The “other” world and wisdom , pp. 29–50, here: pp. 38–43.
  6. ↑ a b Heino Gehrts; Helping dead in fairy tales, legends and everyday life. In: Heino Gehrts: The “other” world and wisdom , pp. 29–50, here: p. 33.
  7. ↑ Heino Gehrts: From the dead and from service to the dead. In: Heino Gehrts: The “other” world and wisdom , pp. 11–28, here: pp. 27/28.
  8. ↑ Heino Gehrts; Helping dead in fairy tales, legends and everyday life. In: Heino Gehrts: The “other” world and wisdom , pp. 29–50, here: p. 35.
  9. ↑ See Klaus Böldl, Andreas Vollmer and Julia Zernack (eds.): Isländersagas 1. The saga of Brennu-Njáll. Fischer, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-10-007622-9 . In the glossary there is both the entry "Leichenhilfe" and the entry "Totenhilfe" (with reference to "Leichenhilfe").
  10. ^ Felix Niedner: Iceland's culture during the Viking Age . Diederichs, Jena 1913, p. 72.
  11. ^ Felix Niedner: Iceland's culture during the Viking Age . Diederichs, Jena 1913, p. 74.