The medieval writer Walter Map (1130-ca.1210) wrote this account of a contemporary event. A Breton knight had a wife who died. One night, he saw her in the midst of a group of fairies. It was a well known belief that the Fairies mixed with or even were the Dead. Undeterred, he snatched her from their midst and brought her home, after which they continued their married life and she bore him a number of children.
I suspect what actually happened was this. The woman was not dead when they buried her and she somehow escaped or was rescued from the grave. When her husband saw her, she was in the midst of a group of ordinary women which, it being after nightfall, he mistook for fairies. He snatched her away and took her home.
However, I may be wrong.
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