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Entity Classification
Human spirits that remain among the living because of trauma, improper burial, vengeance, attachment or unfinished business.
78 documented entities
Ghosts, Revenants and the Restless Dead
Philippine traditions
Amalanhig is a revenant of Philippine folklore, especially associated with Western Visayan traditions, described as a dead aswang or corpse that rises and pursues the…
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Irish and Gaelic tradition
The banshee is the ancestral woman whose keening crosses the land before death, warning an old household that one of its names is about to…
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Scottish Gaelic tradition
The Bean Nighe is the Scottish washer at the ford, cleansing blood from the clothing of a person whose wound and death have not yet…
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Korean traditions
Cheonyeo Gwishin is the Korean ghost of an unmarried woman whose death leaves unresolved grief, social exclusion or frustrated passage into ancestral order.
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Vietnamese traditions
Cô Hồn are Vietnamese wandering and forsaken spirits who lack descendants, proper burial, remembrance or secure incorporation into ancestral ritual.
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Korean traditions
Dalgyal Gwishin is the Korean egg ghost, a faceless apparition whose smooth head lacks eyes, nose and mouth.
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Trinidadian and Afro-Caribbean traditions
Douen are child spirits of Trinidadian folklore, often described as the unbaptized dead who wander with backward feet and concealed faces.
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Old Norse and Icelandic tradition
The draugr is the bodily revenant of Norse tradition, rising from the mound with terrible strength to guard treasure, crush intruders and make the living…
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Irish tradition
The Dullahan is the headless rider of the Irish night road, carrying his severed head as a lantern and stopping only before the door death…
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Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean traditions
Duppy is a Jamaican and wider Caribbean term for a ghost or spirit of the dead, ranging from troublesome apparitions to dangerous restless presences.
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Ancient Greek and comparative European traditions
Eidola are image-like shades or apparitional forms in ancient Greek thought, especially the insubstantial likenesses of the dead encountered in dream and underworld narrative.
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Venezuelan and Colombian plains traditions
El Silbón is a revenant of the Venezuelan and Colombian Llanos, known by a distinctive whistle and by the burden of bones he carries after…
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Guatemalan and Central American traditions
El Sombrerón is a Guatemalan supernatural figure known for his enormous hat, nocturnal music, fascination with long-haired women and the braiding of hair and horse…
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Japanese traditions
Funayūrei are Japanese maritime ghosts of people who died at sea, remembered for approaching ships and attempting to sink or claim the living.
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Japanese traditions
Goryō are powerful Japanese spirits of wronged or politically defeated dead, especially nobles whose anger is believed to manifest through epidemic, storm or public calamity.
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Chinese traditions
Gui is a broad Chinese term for ghosts, spirits of the dead and uncanny beings, especially those whose postmortem condition is unsettled or outside harmonious…
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Korean traditions
The Gwishin of Arang is the Korean ghost of a murdered young woman whose repeated appearances force public authority to confront a concealed crime.
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Korean traditions
Gwisin is the broad Korean term for ghosts and spirits of the dead, especially restless beings shaped by grievance, violent death or incomplete mortuary transition.
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Welsh traditions
Gwrach y Rhibyn is a Welsh death-omen spirit whose wail, approach or appearance announces an impending death within a family or place.
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Japanese traditions
Hanako-san is a Japanese school ghost associated with girls’ toilets, especially a particular stall reached through a repeated challenge or call.
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Hawaiian traditions
Huakaʻi Pō, commonly called Night Marchers, are Hawaiian spirit processions associated with chiefs, warriors, sacred routes and the continuing authority of ancestral places.
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Chinese traditions
Hun and Po are paired soul concepts in Chinese religious and philosophical traditions, often describing lighter, active and spiritual aspects alongside denser, bodily and earthbound…
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Chinese Buddhist and popular religious traditions
Hungry Ghosts, or E Gui, are restless dead in Chinese Buddhist and popular traditions whose cravings cannot be satisfied and whose condition expresses moral, ritual…
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Jewish Kabbalistic traditions
Ibburim are additional souls in Kabbalistic tradition that temporarily join a living person, often to assist a mitzvah, spiritual task or process of rectification.
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Inuit traditions
Ijiraq is an Inuit shape-shifting being associated with disappearance, altered perception, abduction and places where ordinary orientation fails.
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Japanese traditions
Ikiryō is a Japanese living spirit or apparition believed to separate from a person whose intense emotion reaches another place.
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Irish, British and North American traditions
Jack-o'-Lantern is both a wandering ghost-light tradition and the later carved lantern associated with the tale of Stingy Jack.
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Chinese traditions
Jiangshi are Chinese reanimated corpses whose stiff movement, retained bodily form and disrupted vital order distinguish them from ordinary ghosts.
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Afro-Caribbean traditions
Jumbie is a broad Caribbean term for ghosts, spirits and dangerous supernatural presences whose forms vary across Guyana, Trinidad, the Eastern Caribbean and neighboring traditions.
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Māori traditions
Kehua is a Māori term for a ghost or spirit of the dead that lingers, haunts or returns to the world of the living.
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Khmer and Cambodian traditions
Khmoch, more accurately khmaoch in Khmer transliteration, is a broad Cambodian term for ghosts and spirits of the dead.
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Philippine traditions
Kumakatok are Filipino death-omen figures described as three hooded visitors who knock at a door before a death or severe misfortune.
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Indonesian and Malay traditions
Kuntilanak Merah is a modern Indonesian variant of the kuntilanak or pontianak, distinguished by red clothing and intensified associations with rage, revenge and violent death.
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Mexican and Latin American traditions
La Llorona is the Weeping Woman of Mexican and wider Latin American tradition, a restless female ghost associated with lost children, rivers, grief and punishment.
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Venezuelan and Colombian traditions
La Sayona is a Venezuelan and Colombian female revenant known for confronting unfaithful men and revealing a terrifying transformed face.
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Hawaiian traditions
Lapu are wandering Hawaiian ghosts or apparitions, often distinguished from ancestral ʻaumākua by their restless travel, prankish behavior and lack of protective family office.
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Ancient Roman traditions
Larvae are malevolent or dangerous spirits of the dead in Roman religious and literary language, often overlapping with lemures but carrying a stronger sense of…
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Ancient Roman traditions
Lemures are Roman restless dead associated especially with the household and the May festival of Lemuria.
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Latvian and Baltic traditions
Lietuvēns is a Latvian night spirit associated with sleep paralysis, pressure on the chest, nightmares and the restless dead.
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Argentine, Uruguayan and regional South American traditions
Luz Mala is a ghost-light tradition of Argentina, Uruguay and neighboring regions, associated with buried bones, hidden treasure, dangerous ground and restless dead.
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Vietnamese traditions
Ma is a broad Vietnamese term for ghosts and supernatural dead presences, ranging from family apparitions to dangerous wandering spirits.
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Vietnamese traditions
Ma Da is a Vietnamese water ghost associated with drowning, dangerous currents and the dead who remain trapped beneath rivers, lakes or wells.
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Thai traditions
Mae Nak is the famous Thai ghost of Phra Khanong, remembered as a woman who dies in childbirth yet continues living with her husband as…
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Inuit traditions
Mahaha is an Inuit folkloric being associated with emaciation, cold, laughter and tickling victims to death.
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Ukrainian and Slavic traditions
Mavka or Navka is a Slavic female spirit associated with forests, water, untimely death and young women who died before proper social or religious integration.
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Korean traditions
Mongdal Gwishin is a Korean bachelor ghost associated with men who die unmarried and therefore outside an expected stage of family and ancestral continuity.
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Romanian tradition
The moroi is the unsettled Romanian dead between grave and household, often returning as a pale child or dream presence that slowly draws warmth from…
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Korean traditions
Mul Gwishin is a Korean water ghost associated with drowning, dangerous currents and the restless dead attached to rivers, wells or reservoirs.
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Scandinavian folklore
The myling is the unburied child ghost of Scandinavian folklore, climbing onto travellers and growing heavier until someone carries its hidden death back into human…
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Vietnamese Buddhist traditions
Ngạ Quỷ is the Vietnamese Buddhist term for hungry ghosts or pretas, beings tormented by insatiable appetite and karmic deprivation.
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Japanese traditions
Oiwa is the vengeful ghost at the center of Yotsuya Kaidan, one of Japan’s most influential kabuki and ghost-story traditions.
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Japanese traditions
Okiku is the servant ghost of Banchō Sarayashiki, remembered for counting plates from a well or haunted household and crying out when the final plate…
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Japanese traditions
Onryō are Japanese vengeful spirits whose rage, humiliation or unjust death is believed to bring illness, disaster and haunting upon individuals or communities.
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Japanese traditions
Otsuyu is the female ghost of Botan Dōrō, the Peony Lantern story, whose love affair with a living man continues after her death.
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Myanmar Buddhist and popular traditions
Peikta is a Burmese term used for hungry or tormented dead related to the Buddhist preta, remembered through appetite, karmic deprivation and ritual concern for…
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Thai, Lao and Cambodian traditions
Phi is a broad mainland Southeast Asian term for spirits and ghosts, ranging from ancestors and place guardians to dangerous dead and afflicting beings.
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Thai, Lao and Cambodian traditions
Phi Dip Chin is a Thai-language label associated in some regional classifications with Chinese dead imagined as not fully transformed, ritually settled or socially integrated.
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Thai, Lao and Cambodian traditions
Phi Phrai is a dangerous Thai and regional ghost category associated with wandering dead, water, violent death or spirits placed outside normal ancestral protection.
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Thai, Lao and Cambodian traditions
Phi Tai Hong is the Thai ghost of a person who dies suddenly, violently or under conditions considered untimely and socially unresolved.
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Malay and Indonesian traditions
Pocong is an Indonesian ghost represented as a dead person still wrapped in the white Muslim burial shroud and unable to move freely.
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Malay and Indonesian traditions
Pontianak or Kuntilanak is a Malay and Indonesian female revenant associated with death in pregnancy or childbirth, nocturnal seduction and predation.
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Ancient Greek traditions
Psychai are the souls or shades of the dead in ancient Greek language and imagination, especially as they pass into Hades and persist as diminished…
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Inuit traditions
Qalupalik is an Inuit coastal being associated with sea ice, deceptive singing, child abduction and the dangerous boundary between settlement and freezing water.
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Jewish and Late Antique Mesopotamian traditions
Ruchin or ruḥin is an Aramaic plural term for spirits appearing in Jewish and neighboring late antique Mesopotamian magical and protective texts.
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Slavic tradition
The rusalka is the beautiful but unquiet Slavic water dead, singing from rivers and moonlit banks until the living step beyond the place where breath…
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Philippine traditions
Santelmo is a Philippine ghost-light tradition associated with wandering flame, St. Elmo’s fire, death sites and luminous presences seen over fields, water or roads.
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Chinese traditions
Shui Gui is the Chinese water ghost of a drowned person, remembered as a spirit attached to rivers, wells, ponds and places where death occurred…
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Scottish and Irish Gaelic tradition
The sluagh are the black host of the restless dead, flying from the west to seize exposed souls and enlarge a procession no grave has…
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Romanian tradition
The strigoi is the Romanian returning dead who feeds through the family, entering dreams, draining vitality and turning the remembered face of a relative into…
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Malay and Indonesian traditions
Sundel Bolong is an Indonesian female ghost portrayed as a beautiful woman whose back contains a large hollow wound, often linked with sexual violence, pregnancy…
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Japanese urban-legend traditions
Teke Teke is a Japanese urban legend of a female ghost severed at the waist, commonly associated with railway death and the scraping sound of…
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Myanmar traditions
Thaye is a Burmese term for ghost or spirit of the dead, covering a broad range of apparitions, restless presences and postmortem beings.
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Inuit traditions
Tornit are powerful beings or ancient people in Inuit oral traditions, often remembered as unusually strong, solitary or culturally different predecessors.
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Tahitian and Polynesian traditions
Tupapau is a Tahitian and broader Polynesian term for ghosts or spirits of the dead, preserved in oral tradition, colonial writing and visual art.
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Greenlandic Inuit traditions
Tupilaq is a Greenlandic Inuit term associated historically with a constructed avenging being made through secret specialist knowledge and sent against an enemy.
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Slavic tradition
The upyr is the old Slavic vampiric revenant, a swollen corpse that rises from familiar soil and turns one improper death into hunger spreading through…
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Slavic, Romanian and Balkan traditions
Vampir is a Slavic and Balkan revenant term central to the historical formation of the European vampire tradition.
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Lithuanian and Baltic traditions
Vėlė is a Lithuanian term for the soul or spirit of a dead person, especially within Baltic ancestral and funerary traditions.
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