In most of the Greek and Roman stories that survive, the wraiths of the dead are represented as revisiting…
- Date of account
- Published 1912
- Source
- Greek and Roman Ghost Stories
- Reference
- Greek and Roman Ghost Stories · selected passage 28
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English discussion of Greek and Latin source traditions
- Translation
- Lacy Collison-Morley citing classical sources in translation
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
In most of the Greek and Roman stories that survive, the wraiths of the dead are represented as revisiting their friends on earth in sleep
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIn most of the Greek and Roman stories that survive, the wraiths of the dead are represented as revisiting their friends on earth in sleep. These instances I have not, as a rule, troubled to collect, for they cannot strictly be classed as ghost stories; but since the influence of the dead was generally considered to be exercised in this way, I shall give a few stories which seem particularly striking. That it was widely believed that the dead could return at night to those whom they loved is proved by the touching inscription in which a wife begs that her husband may sometimes be allowed to revisit her in sleep, and that she may soon join him.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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