Grateful dead is a folktale present in many cultures throughout the world.
Overview
The most common story involves a traveler who encounters a corpse of someone who never received a proper burial, typically stemming from an unpaid debt. The traveler then either pays off the dead person's debt or pays for burial. The traveler is later rewarded or has their life saved by a person or animal who is actually the soul of the dead person; the grateful dead is a form of the donor. The grateful dead spirit may take many different physical forms including that of a guardian angel, animal, or fellow traveler. The traveler's encounter with the deceased comes near the end of the traveler's journey.
Classification
The "grateful dead" story is Aarne–Thompson–Uther type 505. Folkloristic scholarship classify ATU types 505-508 under the umbrella termThe Grateful Dead, each subtype referring to a certain aspect of the legend: In French academia, the archetype of the Gratetul Dead is known as Jean de Calais.
Variants
In many cultures there is the belief that when a person dies their soul is separated from their body thus giving someone a proper burial allows their spirit to carry on into the next life. An ancient Egyptian text explains the principle of reciprocity in which the deceased calls for a blessing on the person who remembers his name and helps him into a happy afterlife:
But if there be a man, any one whomsoever, who beholdeth this writing and causeth my soul and my name to become established among those who are blessed, let it be done for him likewise after his final arriving in recompense for what was done by him for me, Osiris.
pointed that the type ATU 508, "The Bride Won in a Tournament", harks back to medievalchivalry literature. Ralph Steele Boggs listed occurrences of the ATU 505 in the Spanish literature of Late Middle Ages The chivalric romanceAmadas has the title knight pay his last coins for such a burial. Due to his chivalry the deceased is resurrected and aids the hero in recovering the riches that was used to provide him with a proper burial.
The Grateful Dead motif also appears in various fairy tales, such as the Italian Fair Brow, the Swedish The Bird 'Grip' and H. C. Andersen's The Traveling Companion. The English tale of Jack the Giant Killer contains the subtype ATU 507, "The Monster's Bride". Scholar George Stephens, in his edition of Medieval romanceAmadace, lists other occurrences of the grateful dead in tales from Europe and Asia, as introduction to the book.
