ABSTRACT
In modern popular culture the dead return with diametrically opposed sentiments towards the living. On one side they return as friendly spirits to assure the bereaved of their continuing love and care for them; on the other, they return as vengeful ghosts, vampires, zombies or demons, full of hatred and envy, to harm the living. The chapter outlines some recent expressions of these opposing views of the intentions of the dead towards the living. Freud’s theories offer an understanding of the conflict between the socially acceptable and unacceptable aspects of mourning, which in contrasting expressions of popular culture are projected onto the dead. Tales of the returning dead can also be found in that branch of the popular ballads known as revenant ballads. The chapter offers a reading of two revenant ballads in the light of these psychoanalytic ideas of mourning. Both ballads recount family murders, one involving two sisters, the other a mother and her newborn babies.
