Old Hag Syndrome

OLD

HAG

S Y N D RO M E

Episode 14 Supplement Part one

With Host Mark NOrman

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In This Episode: Host: Mark Norman

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Cover Image: Old Hag Image Courtesy of Adobe stock

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

OLD

HAG

S Y N D RO M E part one With Host

Mark NOrman

“A few years ago, I started having a very strange experience on some nights, waking up during sleep but not feeling awake, could not move and breathed with difficulty.

At first I thought it was a dream, a nightmare in the case, but things started to get worse, became more frequent, even during napping in the school classroom (I was never a very applied student) I went through this situation. It started to scare me. I searched the Internet. I visited a doctor; he told me that it was possibly an effect of the combination of stress and deregulated sleep.

I worked hard to improve my sleep, started sleeping earlier, regularly, and over time the frequency of "sleep paralysis" was decreased.”

Those words came from one of our listeners to The Folklore Podcast, and detailed their experiences suffering from sleep paralysis. A well recognised medical condition, even in medical circles, this is often referred to as ‘old hag syndrome’ because it is common for the experience to be accompanied by hallucinations of terrifying hags or demons. These may appear to sit on your chest and cause the breathing problems. It is this aspect of old hag syndrome which has caused it to enter into folklore and superstition, over the centuries, in similar ways around the world.

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In modern times we tend to use the word nightmare to refer to any particularly bad dream. It may wake us with a start, or in a cold sweat, but by the morning it may be mostly forgotten. The roots of the term nightmare, however, refer to something rather worse. Proto-Indo-European etymology gives us “mor” - a malicious female spirit - and “mer”, the verb to die. This developed all over Europe into “mare” (for example in Old and Middle English and Scottish) and “mara” (from the Old Norse, across Iceland, Scandinavia and into Germanic and Old Saxon language). One of our listeners from Croatia, Nikola Pejak, reports having experienced the phenomenon of sleep paralysis many times and points out that in that country it is called “Mora”.

The Latin term for the nightmare is ‘incubo’ and it is from this root that we see the development of the incubus in medieval superstition. The incubus was said to be a male demon who would lie with sleeping women and have intercourse with them.

They were able to father children, an aspect that was undoubtedly used to explain illegitimate or unwanted pregnancies. The half-demon child of a woman and an incubus was known as a ‘cambion’.

Merlin, the sorcerer of King Arthur’s legendary court, was said to have been the result of an incubus sleeping with his mother. This was the way in which he obtained his magical skills.

The half-demon child of a woman and an incubus was known as a ‘cambion’. Merlin, the sorcerer of King Arthur’s legendary court, was said to have been the result of an incubus sleeping with his mother. This was the way in which he obtained his magical skills.

In both cases, the incubus and succubus were used to explain the symptoms of sleep paralysis and night terrors because the demon would sit on the victim’s chest, pinning them down so they couldn’t move and hampering their breathing. There are some suggestions also that these creatures were associated with less savoury experiences such as sexual dreams, night-time sexual attacks or advances by trusted people such as relatives or members of the church.

Inset Image: Judith Hewitt Background image: Courtesy of Alyssa L. Miller

Background image:The Abby In Oakwood Wikipedia.org

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

We may find parallels to the succubus in other cultures as a demon who offers temptation to men. In Islamic traditions this creature is called the Karina and in old Middle-Eastern superstitions it is known as ‘Lilith’, a name which is used for a seductress in some versions of the Bible.

So, many cultures and traditions use this similar image of the ‘mare’ or demon in order to bring understanding to a condition about which nothing would have been known medically. And this is one of the aspects of folklore generally which should be of great interest to us. Why do we find similar motifs employed in so many different countries and cultures and how do these travel?

This is a question which I explored in the episode on Black Dog Folklore in season 1, and more generally in my book and other research on the subject. It applies equally well to many aspects of folklore and follows the ideas of Jungian psychology.

The concept suggests that we all carry some form of collective subconscious upon which we may draw when we decode symbols around us. It may have been developed throughout the evolution of our species and can be considered to be a kind of folk memory. Our brain may make use of this independently of our commonplace normal thinking or at times when we are not engaged in wakeful thought.

The liminal time between sleep and wakefulness is of great interest to us as folklorists as are other boundary states - a time when things are neither one state or the other. The times when we are entering or leaving the dream state are called hypnogogic and hypnopompic states and they are times which are ripe for potential hallucinatory experiences. They are times when we may see or experience odd sensations and hence are common times for reports of ghostly encounters or alien abductions. This is precisely the reason why it is of such interest when symbols or motifs referenced over time are so similar.

Are we drawing on shared subconscious imagery? And is this the reason that the old hag image or the mare is recurring?

Of equal interest to that of such highly shared imagery is where this imagery links in with, draws from or informs other folkloric motifs. In some areas of folklore this is quite common. In the case of old hag syndrome it is more unusual, but we do find it.

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Burney Relief Babylon courtesy Wikipedia

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

Philip Burnes Jones Le Vampire courtesy Wikipedia

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Listener Andrew D. Gable contacted us to tell us about his experiences with sleep paralysis. He says: “Though I've had sleep disturbances quite a few times, I've only had "true" sleep paralysis once. I awoke around 2:30 or 3 in the morning with a feeling of dread and fear; I didn't have the "typical" Old Hag encounter with the strangling entity sitting on the chest, but I did see a shadowy human figure (much like the "shadow people" of modern lore) standing in the corner of my room about 10 feet from my bed. Its hands were held rigidly at its sides like a soldier standing at attention. After a short time, I managed to blink a few times and the figure gradually faded from view.”

In this case we have the common aspects of fear upon waking but the demonic entity on the chest is replaced with more ghostly apparitional symbols. Other researchers suggest that the old hag experience may be responsible for a number of UFO abduction experiences (and by extension, possibly some fairy experiences).

We may sometimes find regional variations in the folklore of other countries when we come to look at the old hag. In Newfoundland, for example, an area rich in folklore and tradition, the belief is that your enemy may be responsible for sending the hag to attack you while you sleep.

In other countries the folklore of the old hag phenomenon is mixed with many other symbols or tropes. In Hungarian folklore, for instance, we find the Liderc. This creature may take one of a number of forms, but in each case it is said to hatch from the first egg of a black hen that has been kept warm either in a pile of manure or in a human’s armpit.

The creature which emerges from the egg might be a form of imp, it might be a variant of a form of magic chicken or in some cases a fully grown person. In this latter case it may even be a person who was known to the owner of the Liderc, such as a deceased member of their family of a past lover.

In many ways the Liderc behaves in the same way as the incubus or succubus but the person who owns one is also considered to be making some kind of pact with the devil. Where the Liderc as an example of sleep paralysis folklore becomes really interesting

is that the motif demonstrates crossover with other areas of folklore. For example, the Liderc periodically climbs onto the chest of its owner in the manner of normal old hag experiences, but then it is said to drink their blood, weakening them, in the manner of vampire lore. As an aside, we may find paralysis mentioned in one of the most famous of all vampire stories, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, where the arrival of the count is described: “There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before discovered … I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence … Then indeed, my heart sank within me. Beside the bed, as if it had stepped out of the mist … or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had completely disappeared… stood a tall, thin man all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face, the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between, and the red eyes … I would have screamed out,only that I was paralysed.”

In this case of course, the paralysis may be seen to be caused as much by fear as by the more regular symptoms of sleep paralysis.

Another folkloric crossover can be found with the method of destroying the Liderc. The only way to successfully do this is to instruct it to perform an impossible task. We find similarities here with the binding of the deceased to impossible tasks in death for retribution against their deeds in life - this being common in Western folklore. The Liderc will literally implode from frustration whilst trying to perform its task.

Along similar lines to the etymology of the mare discussed earlier, in Hungarian the term for nightmare is Lidercnyomas. This translates as “Liderc pressure”, relating to the paralysis aspect.

Sleep paralysis as a phenomenon is not unusual. In fact, around 40% of the world’s population will experience it at least once. As well as being common in sleep disorders such as narcolepsy it can also be brought on by sleep deprivation.

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

"The waxen

face

nose on which the

white line, the parted

sharp white teeth the red eyes. I wo out,only that I w 10

e, the high aquiline light fell in a thin

ed red lips,with the

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was paralysed.�

Image My Dream, My Really Bad Dream

By Fritz Swimbeck 1915 courtesy Wikipedia

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

The body paralysis which prevents us acting out dreams in REM sleep continues into partial wakefulness in an episode, which can last up to 6 minutes.

We are interested here in examining the folklore which is associated with this real medical condition. If you would like to learn more about the condition itself I highly recommend listening to episode 99 of the Monster Talk podcast, the official podcast of Skeptic Magazine.

It is not always the case that people have the hallucinatory aspect of sleep paralysis, but where they do the creature that they see will be drawn from the cultural upbringing of the individual. The dream state is one which links our deep memories and metaphors from the world around us. In this way it tends to support the archetypal psychology of researchers such as Carl Jung.

Other cultures which refer to the creature on the chest motif include Germanic lore, where it is referred to as an Alp and an attack by the creature as an Alpdruck, and Appalachian cultures where if you wake on your back and cannot breathe it is said that ‘the hag is riding your chest’.

Waking on your back was the trigger for the first experience of another of our listeners, who has asked that we refer to him as just Steve. Steve is 46 and lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

He has had a number of experiences over the last 8-10 years and became so interested in the phenomenon that he contacted me and asked that we considered the topic for the podcast. Thank you Steve, and here we are‌ On the first occasion,where Steve was lying on his back, he says that he was trying to scream but could not make any sound. He forced himself to calm down and says that he stopped trying to do anything. It seemed as if he took a deliberate breath and then he tried to scream again, but once again there were no results. As suddenly as it had all begun, it seemed to be over.

Whoever or whatever was with Steve (and he is sure that there was someone with him) was gone. He was able to move and to sit up in bed and collect himself, although he was quite shaken from the experience.

On another occasion (Steve thinks perhaps the second or third time it happened) he awoke to find himself lying on his left side with his back close to the edge of the bed. He reports that he felt a female presence standing behind him at the bedside.

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A god or devil worshipped in Calicut called Deumo courtesy Wikipedia

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli (1781).

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

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Steve thinks that this felt more like a kindly feminine entity rather than an old hag and that she was trying to straighten the bedsheets over him. Although Steve acknowledges that this is somewhat different to the traditional Old Hag accounts, he was still unable to move at the time and it was only he felt that sensation that the presence was gone that he was able to move or do anything else.

It is interesting that the presence in the room seemed to be nurturing rather than demonic or frightening, whilst the paralysis symptom remained the same. Possibly Steve is fortunate in that his brain deals with the out of place REM induced paralysis in a different and more positive way. Steve does say in his notes, however, that the experience was still unsettling because there was no physical being in the room.

Steve continued to explain that he had another similar experience which was more unsettling than striking fear into him, and that again he was only able to move when he sensed that the entity at his bedside left the room. He then went on to note one final experience which was not typical at all of Old Hag syndrome events, especially as he was in a chair at the time, but has enough similarities to be worth considering alongside the others.

The event took place in the sitting room and Steve was asleep in a chair. When he ‘woke up’ (Steve’s quotes) he could not move and became aware of a small figure close by. The figure appeared to walk past him and into the nearby bedroom which was just around the corner of the room and down the hallway from where he was sitting. Steve says that close behind this figure there was a woman standing and watching.

Seeing multiple figures or creatures is unusual in terms of Old Hag Syndrome and historic folklore examples tend to cite a single creature. Is this different from a more traditional sleep paralysis episode? The paralysis angle is present but the figures act differently. If you have had experiences with multiple figures or have thoughts on this one, why not hop onto the Folklore Podcast Group on Facebook and get in touch, or email us using the contact form on our website.

There are some other fascinating angles to explore in the folklore of the nightmare and sleep paralysis episodes and so we will return to these in more detail in Episode 16.

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

The Newfoundland Hag, Canada - (Courtesy Nicole Schmidt - Mythos Podcast) At the close of Winter Solstice, as a stretch of grasping gold hovers on the horizon, there seems to be witchery in the deep alchemic topaz-blue of the sea and sky.

Swirling amidst the yellow glow of the town, there are the sounds of Solstice festivities, but this lies some distance from a certain cliff-grasping wooden house, which seems to be in the clasp of a giant rock crone, so jagged and black are the rocks of the cliff face, gently sloping down to the harbour. Here the land is scratched by the crone nails of Mother Winter and the little house lay within the more sinister jurisdictions of her domain.

With sudden unnatural force, a cackling wind blasts over the rocky terrain, blowing through the stone furrows, swirling the snow - and from some distance - the impression is that the little wooden home lay on top of the deeply furrowed face of an ice-witch, the snow filling the crevices of her ancient stony face.

And as the cackling wind throws itself against the house, a young woman puts a pot of urine under her bed. The vinegary sharpness of the stuff has a magical potency, has an acidic aura that will keep her away. And as the young woman climbs into bed, feeling childish protection in the soft shield of the blankets she pulls over her vulnerable skinny legs, she feels a warmth in the center of her back, as if the urine is radiating spiritual protection, warmth for the young woman but like the sting of alcohol on a wound for her.

The young woman reaches out to turn off the lamp but leaves a single candle, guttering strangely in the still warm room. She cannot bear sudden darkness but must come at it gradually, allowing her hag bitten soul to take baby-steps towards the fey portal of night. She stares at the candle, black-ice dread thinly coating her heart as the meagre tea-light begins to peter out. She listens closely to the rhythm of her own breathing pattern, finding some solace in its predictability.

But then the candle is suddenly blown out‌.blown out by a breath that is not her own, a loud obvious breath that is out of sync with her own now hurried breathing, a cold breath just one meter in front of her.

And outside, that mean-spirited breath of an arctic witch, that cackling breath throws itself against the house, the young woman strains her eyes, young eyes grown prematurely old with the strain of sleepless night after sleepless night, grown old with the strain of seeing concentrated spiritual profanity with poor human eyes. And as her poor human eyes are forced to adjust to dark dimensions - there is - suddenly - deeper darkness, three dimensional, a figure formed from the black clay of the underworld suddenly materialises at the foot of her bed.

The young woman tries to fling off the covers, tries to move - but can only manage pathetic fish-like twitches, like a dazed trout on the lake shore. Then, the atmosphere of the room becomes even more paralyzing, full of ancient weight and elderly musk.

And the murky shape begins to lope around the side of the bed, an apish idiot grin in the very movements of this fey being, and as the woman’s eyes became fixed on the creeping thing, she felt it again, like all the other nights before it.

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Something within herself, invisible but as real and present as her very breath, is bitten into. A chunk of her very self is swallowed and gulped. She can feel satiated satisfaction coming from the creeping thing, now lingering with maniacal quivering just beside her, full of ancient weight and elderly musk.And now it is so close, she can see the winding wrinkles in the ancient canyon of her face and a geriatric meanness in the lean muscles of the shadow arms grasping the edge of the bed.

The young woman gasps and writhes with those feeble fish-like twitches, feels a crushing freezing weight on her chest, as if her heart has been plunged into the freezing waters of one of Labrador’s lakes, glacier gouged and chiseled by millenniums of sharp northern wind-teeth. She is drowning in crone-cold.

And her bed creaks. The full weight of the hunched-hag squats down on her chest.

And now she is crushed, even where her spirit meets her bones. The young woman’s being has been pulled into the orbit of a wicked celestial body - the density of ancient weight and elderly musk creating a new dimension to the laws of gravity. And the young woman gasps and strains beneath the sinister weight of this crouching bundle of ink and oil.

And as the cackling wind throws itself against the wooden house, the young woman feels more eager nips being taken from her soul and resounding in her mind are her grandmother’s hushed tones, ‘they say it eats a piece of your soul when you see it, child. So close your eyes. And close them tight.’

So she does. And she screams.

The weight of the blackness is like a beaker of some heavy metal, like mercury or lead; it vice grips her soul and her mind.

Then, she hears the chanting of a man and has a fleeting image of him kneeling beside his bed and driving a knife in the sideboard. She could see she’d been witched; she’d been hagged. Somewhere, that man was channeling his own spirit into the spirit of the hag, was merging his malice with the ancient malice of a being who ate darkness and had become so weighted by the many centuries of gorging on blackness, that she was now heavier than lead, than mercury, than every heavy metal in the known universe.The young woman screams again for her father and becomes unconscious.

And later, as the young woman trembles and weeps, sitting at the kitchen table with her father, a blanket draped over her shoulders, she begs him to tell her that she’s still alive. Please tell me, she pleads, please prove to me I haven’t died. Because she knew, like all did in those beautiful yet often cruel northern climes, that when you’d been hagged, that there was always the chance you would never wake up.

Daddy gently puts his arms around her shoulders and tells her she is so very alive.

That he had heard her scream and came running, that when he had entered, he felt chilled down where his spirit meets his bones, that something ancient, elderly and musky was there in that room. And with tears, Daddy tells her that she was foaming at the mouth and that he had chanted his dear daughter’s name backwards until that heavy hag lept off her chest and into that obsidian ether where she belonged.

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The Folklore Podcast Supplement: Old Hag Syndrome With Mark Norman

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SUGGESTED READING Adler, Shelley R: Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos and the Mind-Body Connection, Rutgers University Press, 2011 Hufford, David J: The Terror that Comes in the Night: An ExperienceCentred Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982 Hurd, Ryan: Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnogogic Visions and Visitors of the Night, Hyena Press, 2010 Jones, Ernest; On the Nightmare, Hogarth Press, 1931, available in full pdf text at http://ia800304.us.archive.org/18/items/ onthenightmare032020mbp/onthenightmare032020mbp.pdf Proud, Louis: Dark Intrusions: An Investigation into the Paranormal Nature of Sleep Paralysis Experiences, Anomolist Books 2009 Sharpless, Brian A and Doghramji, Karl, Sleep Paralysis, Oxford University Press, 2015 Toner, Alan: Incubus and Succubus, Kindle, 2013 In addition, the Internet Archive has links to other essays and notes on sleep paralysis and hallucinations via this link: http://web.archive.org/ web/20040223183851/http://www.nursingpower.net/healing/sleep.html

Background: Old Hag Courtesy of Adobe stock

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