Draugar live in their graves or royal palaces, often guarding treasure buried with them in their burial mound. They are revenants, or animated corpses with a corporeal body, rather than … See more

Old Norse draugr is defined as "a ghost, spirit, esp. the dead inhabitant of a cairn". Often the draugr is regarded not so much as a ghost but a revenant, i.e., the reanimated corpse of the … See more

Ghost with physical body
The draugr is a "corporeal ghost" with a physical tangible body and not an "imago", and in tales it is often delivered a "second death" by destruction of the enlivened corpse.
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Draugar usually possessed superhuman strength, and were "generally hideous to look at", bearing a necrotic black or blue color, and were associated with a "reek of decay" or more precisely inhabited haunts that often issued foul stench.
The draugar were … See more

Draugar are noted for having numerous magical abilities (referred to as trollskap) resembling those of living witches and wizards, such as shape-shifting, controlling the weather, and seeing into the future.
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Any mean, nasty, or greedy person can become a draugr. As Ármann Jakobsson notes, "most medieval Icelandic ghosts are evil or marginal people. If not dissatisfied or evil, they are unpopular".
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A variation of the draugr is the haugbui (from Old Norse haugr' "howe, barrow, tumulus") which was a mound-dweller, the dead body living on within its tomb. The notable difference between the two was that the haugbui is unable to leave its grave site and only … See more