The Irish often speak of fetches, and the Scottish of wraiths. More generally, a phantom, from the Greek
phantasma, is sometimes unreal or immaterial, an illusion or dream-image, a specter or ghost. A phantasm may be the same thing, but Edmund Gurney and others in
Phantasms of the Living (1886) discussed as phantasms "all classes of cases where … the mind of one human being has affected the mind of another … by other means than through the recognized channels of sense" (vol. 1, p. 35). A poltergeist, from the German
poltern ("to make noise") and
Geist ("spirit") is regarded as a noisy spirit remarkable for throwing things about. Since the nineteenth century the French world
revenant (lit., "one who comes back"), has been used in English to describe a being who returns from the dead.
The word ghost most commonly refers to a dead person who haunts or simply appears before the living, sometimes with a message or warning. The notion has been popular in literature. While Shakespeare wrote one play involving fairies and another involving witches, ghosts were an important feature in several of his works: Hamlet's father, Caesar, and Banquo all appear as ghosts.
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