travels, while not doing so would result in bad luck and dangerous accidents. Many of these varps have now disappeared, but in a few places the varp is marked with a sign or something similar. Modern Era In slightly newer tradition, the gjenganger remains a violent entity, though in a less direct way, now becoming more of a disease-spreader. These gjengangere would attack people with their so-called dead man's pinch (dødningeknip). The pinch was often administered when the person was asleep. Both the forest creature (huldra) and the water spirits (nøkken) were also accused of doing the same, using bites instead of pinches, often aimed at the victim's face. This belief in beings attacking people in their sleep was used as a warning against going to sleep in specific places; near the graveyard, mountains or water. In later Swedish folklore, a distinction is made between the traditional gjenganger, in Swedish called gengångare, and another type of ghost known as gast. Whereas the gengångare looked virtually identical to a living human, the gast was known to be transparent and/or skeletal in appearance, making it impossible to see who the phantom had been while alive. And whereas the Swedish version of the gengångare were usually said to be rather harmless, it was the gast who was known to cause diseases. They were also known to cause accidents and scare people for no apparent reason other than that they enjoyed doing so. Today it mostly compares with the modern perception of ghosts, most often being ethereal in form, and non-violent in nature. The word gjenganger is being used less, the contemporary word ghost (spøkelse) having mostly taken over. Where the term gjenganger does occur, it may be treated simply as a synonym for ghost. The corresponding verbal phrase walk again (gå igjen) is just one way of saying "haunt" with reference to ghosts. See also Draugr Wiedergänger References Bibliography Espeland, Velle (2002) Spøkelse! Hvileløse gjengangere i tradisjon og historie (Oslo: Humanist forlag) Hodne, Ørnulf (1995) Vetter og skrømt i norsk folketro (Oslo: J.W. Cappelens forlag) Hodne, Ørnulf (2008) Mystiske steder i Norge (Oslo: J.W. Cappelens forlag) Sivertsen, Birger (2000) For noen troll (Oslo: Andresen & Butenschøn AS) Danish folklore Norwegian folklore Swedish folklore European ghosts Scandinavian folklore Corporeal undead Revenants