באדיבות ויקפדיה האנגלית
The term lich comes from the Old English lic, (pronounced the same) which means "corpse"; an alternative spelling is "liche". The word is cognate with modern German Leiche, meaning "corpse"; for the linguistic background see lich on the German language Wikipedia. The Lich appeared in fantasy fiction quite early on. Clark Ashton Smith, for one, mentions a lich in the story "Empire of the Necromancers." In modern fantasy fiction, a lich is a type of undead creature, usually an evil magician. The usage of the term "lich" as a specific type of undead creature, rather than as a general term for an animate or inanimate corpse, originates in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. In old Roman Catholicism, the "lych" or "lych gate" is a covered area at the enterance to the cemetery where the casket awaits the clergy before proceeding into the cemetery for proper burial. As such, the suggestion as to the fantasy undead creature, the Lich, is of an undead creature that was never properly buried, never made it to the grave. This is different from other types of undead creatures, such as vampires and zombies, who were buried and returned from the dead. Since most religions maintain that only God or a god can bring someone back from the dead, there is also a suggestion of hubris in the idea of anyone but a diety reanimating dead. Hence, the idea of Undead is the idea of an unclean, unholiness. לדאבוני, כנראה שיש יותר מידע גם בגרסה בגרמנית- אך קצרה ידי מלתרגם.