wraith

n.

1. An apparition of a living person that appears as a portent just before that person's death.
2. The ghost of a dead person.
3. Something shadowy and insubstantial.

[Origin unknown.]

noun

A supernatural being, such as a ghost: apparition, bogey, bogeyman, bogle, eidolon, ghost, phantasm, phantasma, phantom, revenant, shade, shadow, specter, spirit, visitant. Informal spook. Regional haunt. See beings, supernatural.

This can be a synonym for ghost, but generally means the spectral double of someone still alive. Usually, it appears at or near the time of the person's death, as a sign for close friends or relatives; sometimes it is a more long-term warning; occasionally it means the person is in danger or distress. To see one's own wraith (also called a ‘fetch’) is a sure sign of death. The apparition of a destined husband summoned by some love divinations is also a wraith. The belief is old, and still strongly held; a Manchester woman in 1981 said:

Some years ago, it was at the end of the First World War. My husband was quite young, and he was away with his older sister,—on holiday or something. And the young man his sister was engaged to appeared before them in the bedroom, as plainly as anything, in his uniform. He said it was just as if he was almost there! And he'd been killed just at that time in the War! (Bennett, 1987: 55)

There was a widespread idea that once a year, usually on St Mark's Eve but sometimes at All Souls or Midsummer Night, anyone who watched in the church porch from midnight till one o'clock would see those fated to die that year entering the church, usually in the order of their deaths. An account of 1634, from Burton in Lincolnshire, describes a procession of figures in winding-sheets led by the curate, and sounds of a burial service.

However, keeping this watch was disapproved of, and could bring its own punishment. It was said of a certain Jonny Joneson, sexton of Middleton (near Manchester) around 1800, that he kept watch on All Souls' Eve, counting the wraiths and gloating to think how many burial fees he would earn, until one appeared which he recognized as himself. He fell ill, and was dead within a year (Samuel Bamford, Autobiography (1848-9), i. 160-2). Similarly at Dorstone (Herefordshire) on All Souls' Eve a man saw wraiths gathering in the church, where the Devil, dressed as a monk, called out the names of those fated to die; he heard his own name, and died shortly after (Leather, 1912: 107). For further examples, see St Mark's Eve.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• Opie and Tatem, 1989: 80-1
• Bennett, 1987: 55-64
• S. P. Menefee, in The Seer, ed. Hilda Ellis Davidson (1989), 80-99.
• Some Victorian accounts of wraiths are in Briggs, 1970-1: B. ii. 489-93, 505-6 518-19, 525-6, 549, 576, 595

The apparition or double of a living person, generally supposed to be an omen of death. The wraith closely resembles its prototype in the flesh, even to details of dress. There are accounts of people seeing their own wraith, and among those who were warned of approaching death in this way are said to be Queen Elizabeth I, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Catherine of Russia. The latter, seeing her double seated upon the throne, ordered her guards to fire upon it.

But wraiths of others may appear to one or more persons. Lord Balcarres of Scotland saw the wraith of his friend "Bonnie Dundee" at the moment when the latter fell at the Battle of Killiecrankie, and the poet Ben Jonson saw his eldest son's double when the original was dying of the plague.

The belief in the wraith flourishes in Europe, and in different parts of Britain it goes under different names, such as "waff," "swarth," "task," and "fye." Variants are the Irish " fetch, " and the Welsh "lledrith."

In Scotland it was believed that the wraith of one about to die might be seen wrapped in a shroud. The higher the shroud reached, the nearer was the approach of death.

Something analogous to wraith-seeing comes within the scope of modern psychical science, and the apparition is explained in various ways, as an astral projection or an emanation from the person of its living prototype.

A well-known case is that of the Birkbeck Ghost, when three children witnessed the apparition of their mother shortly before her death. This instance, reported in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. 1, 1882, pp. 121-122), is noteworthy because Mrs. Birkbeck was conscious before she died of having spent the time with her children.

IN BRIEF: A mental representation of some haunting experience.

We thought we saw a wraith in the window as we passed by the old abandoned mansion on the edge of town.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - dobbeltgænger, genfærd, syn, ånd

Nederlands (Dutch)
spookbeeld

Français (French)
n. - apparition (littér)

Deutsch (German)
n. - Gespenst

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - φάντασμα (ανθρώπου που εμφανίζεται αμέσως πριν ή αμέσως μετά το θάνατό του)

Italiano (Italian)
spettro

Português (Portuguese)
n. - aparição de um espírito (f)

Русский (Russian)
привидение, тень, призрачная дымка

Español (Spanish)
n. - espectro, fantasma

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - vålnad

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
生魂, 幽灵, 死灵

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 生魂, 幽靈, 死靈

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 망령, (막 죽은 사람의) 영혼, 마른 사람

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 生霊, 亡霊, 幽霊, 生き霊

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) دخان, شبح, خيال‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮רוח-מת, שלד-אדם‬

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