In numerous Celtic folk-tales the dead rise in the body, not as ghosts, from the grave, which is sometimes described as a house in which they live.  They perform their ordinary occupations in house or field; they eat with the living, or avenge themselves upon them; if scourged, blood is drawn from their bodies; and, in one curious Breton tale, a dead husband visits his wife in bed and she then has a child by him, because, as he said, “sa compte d’enfants” was not yet complete.[1168] In other stories a corpse becomes animated and speaks or acts in presence of the living, or from the tomb itself when it is disturbed.[1169] The earliest literary example of such a tale is the tenth century “Adventures of Nera,” based on older sources.  In this Nera goes to tie a withy to the foot of a man who has been hung.  The corpse begs a drink, and then forces Nera to carry him to a house, where he kills two sleepers.[1170] All such stories, showing as they do that a corpse is really living, must in essence be of great antiquity.  Another common belief, found over the Celtic area, is that the dead rise from the grave, not as ghosts, when they will, and that they appear en masse on the night of All Saints, and join the living.[1171]

As a result of such beliefs, various customs are found in use, apparently to permit of the corpse having freedom of movement, contrary to the older custom of preventing its egress from the grave.  In the west of Ireland the feet of the corpse are left free, and the nails are drawn from the coffin at the grave.  In the Hebrides the threads of the shroud are cut or the bindings of feet, hands, and face are raised when the body is placed in the coffin, and in Brittany the arms and feet are left free when the corpse is dressed.[1172] The reason is said to be that the spirit may have less trouble in getting to the spirit world, but it is obvious that a more material view preceded and still underlies this later gloss.  Many stories are told illustrating these customs, and the earlier belief, Christianised, appears in the tale of a woman who haunted her friends because they had made her grave-clothes so short that the fires of Purgatory burnt her knees.[1173]

Earlier customs recorded among the Celts also point to the existence of this primitive belief influencing actual custom.  Nicander says that the Celts went by night to the tombs of great men to obtain oracles, so much did they believe that they were still living there.[1174] In Ireland, oracles were also sought by sleeping on funeral cairns, and it was to the grave of Fergus that two bards resorted in order to obtain from him the lost story of the Tain.  We have also seen how, in Ireland, armed heroes exerted a sinister influence upon enemies from their graves, which may thus have been regarded as their homes—­a belief also underlying the Welsh story of Bran’s head.