There, by means of his charismatic personality and boldface lying, he secured an apartment directly upstairs. Eventually it kills the king. The whole phenomenon is explained psychologically. The hag is also seen as being derived from the Anglo-Saxon maera which has its roots in ancient German superstition. Throughout my childhood, I was both frightened and inspired by tales of New Haven’s sea hag, and as an adult and researcher, I am devoted to inspecting and propagating this local cultural treasure. Template:Cite dragon/68/What's in the Water? [email protected]. On the following morning, the woman who is the mare is found injured or dead. She figures in Alvissmal, a poem from the Edda. Reports about the nightmare are recorded up until a hundred years ago. In beating the nightmare, we have already mentioned the motif of the knife.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication). Besides REM atonia there is another experience which might shed light on the subject, and this is sleep paralysis. Fearing for his own safety, the shiphand scurried above deck to hide. While there, he married a young beautiful local named Molly. A Fearsome Beast in Tales Around the World, 5,000-Year-Old Masked Figurine Found in Siberian Mass Grave, Researchers Find Ilopango Mega-eruption Caused A Maya Armageddon, Runestone Discovered in Sweden Provides Window Into Viking Past. The Long Fascination With the Chastity Belt – But Was it Just A Fantasy? Unfortunately, her name has never been satisfactorily explained. I believe that the phenomenon might have been part of the training among witches within a Germanic context. In Dutch, the nightmare is known as the maar or mare, sometimes called nachtmaar or nachtmare, analogous to the English word. In Belgium and Holland, the droede is almost never heard of. [2], While all hags possessed an inverted sense of beauty, seeing it as ugly and vice versa, sea hags in particular were known for utterly abhorring all that was attractive. ( Log Out /  [7] The wicked fey lived near or within large bodies of water and the unfortunate souls that feasted eyes on them were often feasted on shortly after. Sometimes wanderers would intrude upon their domains and give them a chance to vent, but they would just as easily exit their homes and hunt for victims, whether among the surface-dwellers or other aquatic entities. A heavy weight is felt on the chest or on the whole body. The lighthouse is new, but in the same location and the area hasn’t been too changed by industry. He ran all over Ireland trying to get away from her, eventually ending up at Loop Head in south Clare. Over time, the Dutch word changed into nachtmerrie where merrie means female horse. THE LEGEND OF THE SEA HAG P.A.F. Offending a sea witch by such means as refusing to pay her for her services, insulting her looks, or refusing to acknowledge her powers could end in disaster, as the sea witch might choose to destroy an entire ship. The verses ask the nightmare to count all the blades of grass, for instance. not too sure if this is bs or not, but it’s out there, […] the help of a marketing agency, as the center of a campaign that included a fake Wikipedia page, a blog—hosting, among other items, a handwritten, historical-looking eyewitness account—and advice […]. She is usually the one who gave the advice about the knife in the first place. When horses are taken by the nightmare, their manes get tangled. Sadly for her, Cú Chulainn did not return her feelings, finding her advances distasteful. Lee M. Hollander, Heimskringla, Universtiy of Texas Press, Austin 1992. [3], Sea hags, appropriately, were known to occupy warm seas in shallows with overgrown vegetation.

When he did so his body would lie there as if he were asleep or dead; but he himself, in an instant, in the shape of a bird or animal, a fish or serpent, went to distant countries…” The passage implies that he could be at two places simultaneously.

The next day the shiphand reported his story to the captain who quickly put together a maritime court. The Sea Hag is one of the central enemies of Popeye the Sailor. Although the motif is particular to Germanic folklore, the mare’s name forms the basis of the French word for nightmare, cauchemar. When a person goes to bed, he suddenly feels a pressure on the body, usually in the area of the chest.

At his destination, Robert walked off that boat a free man. The person cannot breathe. It tells the story from the point of view of one of the boat’s shipmates. The practice is known as seiðr, although seiðr comprises more than just this. ... Thrud is a woman and a character of legend, but not much is known about her. Today I was doing some online research to examine the Sea Hag’s persistence in recent history, and I came across a mention of Sea Hag on Matt Scott’s WTNH News blog. A Pilgrimage of Thought: The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Batman Existed in Mesoamerican Mythology and His Name Was Camazotz, Ramayana: The Grand Epic of Ancient India, The Evidence is Cut in Stone: A Compelling Argument for Lost High Technology in Ancient Egypt, Secrets Behind the Creepy Plague Doctor Mask and Costume, Ten amazing inventions from ancient times, Beyond the Pyramid Ramp: Unravelling Egypt’s Most Elusive Enigma. [2][8], Sea hags themselves normally lived as gloomy recluses, in lairs as dismal as they were.

An example is found in Friðþjófssaga in which two women practiced seiðr to control a whale at sea. The origin of the term ‘hag’ is from the Old English for witch or haegtes, which in Middle English is hagge, and is akin to the German hexe meaning witch. Sea witches are traditional folklore characters usually portrayed as women with a magical bond or power regarding the sea, the weather, or other aspects of seafaring life. Some were indistinguishable from ordinary sea hags while others were larger, had greater charisma or possessed piscine lower halves. The witch Sycorax in Shakespeare's The Tempest is often interpreted to be a sea witch. We see a sort of out-of-body experience developing. Sea hags were revolting to look upon; their visage was so horrifying that the weak-hearted were known to die upon gazing at these hags. And I am very excited to share these resources as they become available. Verses were sung before going to bed. (Public Domain). In some versions of sea witch lore, the witch had the power to call up treasures lost in shipwrecks. The Princess, in turn, argued that lesser sea hags and possibly all hags were really the degenerate spawn of the superior, greater sea hags.[12].

The last thing he saw of the incident was Robert throwing a limp figure overboard. The discovery of 1500-year-old ruins at Tintagel in south-west England made headlines around the world. It appeared to onlookers that the women were riding the whale. An account by one of the shiphands who had been sneaking below to pilfer from the ships alcohol stores (something he had been systematically doing all night) described Robert kneeling over a young, struggling woman with his hands choking the life out of her.