thumb|Illustration of mare in cat shape by Kasia Walentynowicz

A mare (; Danish, ; ; , ; among many others) is a malicious entity in Germanic and Slavic folklore that sits, walks, or "rides" on people's chests while they sleep, bringing on nightmares. When placed on the victim's chest, it is said to have a suffocating effect, and can lead to cold sweats or sleep paralysis. It is often a female being with magical abilities for haunting its victim, including the ability to shapeshift.

Etymology

The word mare, through Middle English , comes from the Old English feminine noun , which had numerous variants: , , , etc.

Cognates in other languages includes:

  • Norse: → , , , , , or according to other sources 'to rub away' or 'to harm'. Compare this to Finnish and Karelian, where the creature is roughly called "pressinger" (, ), or "ridinger" (). Further, in Danish and Norwegian, the word for 'nightmare' is "mare ride" (, ); in Icelandic, the word for 'nightmare' is "mare tread", or "mare trample" (); whereas in Swedish and Finnish, the word for 'nightmare' is "mare dream" (, ).

However, other etymologies have been suggested. For example, Éva Pócs saw the term as being cognate with the Greek term Moros (, from )<!-- Indo-European --> meaning "doom". There is no definite answer among historians about the time of origin of the word. According to the philologist Yeleazar Meletinsky, a Slavonic root, ,<!-- Proto-Slavonic --> passed into the Germanic language no later than the 1st century BC.

Beliefs

The mare was believed to ride horses, which left them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning.

Thus help me God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen!| lang= de

|Hier leg' ich mich schlafen,

Keine Nachtmahr soll mich plagen,

Bis sie schwemmen alle Wasser,

Die auf Erden fließen,

Und tellet alle Sterne,

Die am Firmament' erscheinen!

Dazu helfe mir Gott Vater, Sohn und heiliger Geist. Amen!

Such charms are preceded by the example of the Münchener Nachtsegen of the fourteenth century (See Elf under §Medieval and early modern German texts). Its texts demonstrates that certainly by the Late Middle Ages, the distinction between the , the Alp, and the (Drude) was being blurred, the Mare being described as the Alp's mother.

Nordic folklore

thumb|The Mare as a 'young beautiful woman', according to Scandinavian folklore, "riding" a sleeping person

thumb|The Mare as a 'nasty older lady', according to Scandinavian folklore, "riding" a sleeping person (by [[Joakim Skovgaard, )]]

The Scandinavian mare is normally a female being which "rides" the victims chest, called "mare riding" (, , ), causing severe anxiety and feelings of suffocation. It assaults both people and animals, and is often said to be a young beautiful woman, although she could also be depicted as a nasty older lady.

The mare is attested as early as in the Norse Ynglinga saga from the 13th century. Here, King Vanlandi Sveigðisson of Uppsala lost his life to a nightmare () conjured by the Finnish sorceress Huld or Hulda, hired by the king's abandoned wife Drífa. The king had broken his promise to return within three years, and after ten years had elapsed the wife engaged the sorceress to either lure the king back to her, or failing that, to assassinate him. Vanlandi had scarcely gone to sleep when he complained that the nightmare "rode him"; when the men held the king's head it "trod on his legs" on the point of breaking, and when the retinue then "seized his feet", the creature fatally "pressed down on his head". In Sámi mythology, there is an evil elf called Deattán, who transforms into a bird or other animal and sits on the chests of sleeping people, giving nightmares.

According to the Vatnsdæla saga, Thorkel Silver () has a dream about riding a red horse that barely touched ground, which he interpreted as a positive omen, but his wife disagreed, explaining that a mare signified a man's fetch (fylgja), and that the red color boded bloodiness. This association of the nightmare with fetch is thought to be of late origin, an interpolation in the text dating to circa 1300, with the text exhibiting a "confounding of the words and ."

Another possible example is the account in the Eyrbyggja saga of the sorceress Geirrid accused of assuming the shape of a "night-rider" or "ride-by-night" ( or ) and causing serious trampling bruises on Gunnlaug Thorbjornsson. The mentioned here has been equated to the by commentators.

Slavic folklore

Polish and Czech denotes both a kind of elf (alp, nightmare) as well as a moth. and Slovak .

The Polish term attested in the 15th century means an illness condition of a child, who suffers from spasmodic crying, for which demons were sometimes blamed. In Romania they were known as Moroi.

The Russian counterpart is called kikimora or hihimore, like the French name cauchemar.

Polish folklore

The Polish nightmare is known by such names as (around Podlachia), (around Kraków). cutting off a string from the doorknob, sticking an awl in the door, or putting a broom and an axe crosswise on the threshold

Bibliography

  • Bjorvand, Harald; Lindeman, Fredrik Otto edd. (2007). Våre arveord. 2nd edition. Novus. .
  • Devereux, Paul (2001). Haunted Land: Investigations into Ancient Mysteries and Modern Day Phenomena, Piatkus Publishers.
  • Hødnebø, Finn and Magerøy, Hallvard (eds.) (1979). Snorres kongesagaer 1, 2nd ed. Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. .
  • Pickett, Joseph P. et al. (eds.) (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. .

Further reading