Andrei Flavius PETRUȚ
Brad, Hunedoara
petrut.flavius@yahoo.com
The present text brings into discussion the supernatural beings that still haunt the collective mentality of the inhabitants of the land of Zarand. Ghosts, because it’s them we are talking about, are still part of the stories of the elderly who remember their encounters with them. Unwanted in the village world and blaming them for the various misfortunes facing the community, people have developed practices to help them identify these beings, but also to remove them. Thus, since the birth of certain children who have a malformation of the spine, it is believed that they are undead. Sometimes, during life, because of curses or pacts with the devil, people lose their souls, so that, after death, they do not find their peace and continue to come to haunt those who are alive. People told us about these meetings, presenting the practices by which undeads are removed: through witchcraft, with the help of priests or through divine intervention. People do not want these returns of dead people, even if they are their beloved ones. Once dead, man loses his human status, these returns disturbing the peace of the village, and can cause strong imbalances: disease, famine, death of people and animals. Only after these beings are defeated, the life of the villagers’ returns to normal, keeping only the memory of the events that disturbed the peace.
Keywords: Undeads, supernatural beings, dead alive, witchcraft, pact with the devil.