Hop on pop.

So to wrap up the series on zombies (for now) I'm going to take a run at the Chinese hopping corpse or Geong Si (or Kuang Shi). Modern Kung Fu movies have priests conjuring up hordes of these nasties to supply the endless Kung Fu battles, but I'm more interested in the real ones.

According to legend, the dead, if they die away from there ancestral home, head back there so they can be properly buried. Now normally the family would, like any other, send for the body or have a friend or relative go and retrieve it. Poorer families had little money to pay for this and had to rely on a bulk shipment of sorts, where a specially trained priest would go and collect the dead for a village and bring them back for a much lower, per loved one fee. The priest used spells to keep the dead marching in order.

Not surprsingly these walking dead strayed from the paths and got into trouble, mostly attacking and eating people. This biting habit has been a common thread throughout zombie history and may also account for many cultures' vampire legends as well. Ah, its nice to have efficient and adaptable horroe mythologies.