Mara

Overview

A female nightmare spirit of Germanic and Slavic folklore who 'rides' sleepers and presses on their chests, producing the experience that gave English the word 'nightmare' (literally 'night-mara').

Details

Origin:

Germanic-, Scandinavian-, and Slavic-speaking Europe, with strong continuity from medieval to modern times.

Regions:

Germanic Europe, Scandinavia, Slavic Europe

First Reported:

1230

Full Account

The Mara is a malevolent female spirit of Germanic, Scandinavian, and Slavic folklore who visits sleepers at night, sits or 'rides' on their chests, and produces suffocating dreams, sleep paralysis, and night-sweats. Old English mære, Old Norse mara, and Old High German mara all derive from a Proto-Germanic *marōn, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to crush, press, oppress'. Modern English 'nightmare' is literally 'night-Mara'; French cauchemar borrows the same element via Old French. In the 13th-century Ynglinga saga (preserved in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla), King Vanlandi Sveigðisson of Uppsala is killed by a mara conjured by the Sámi sorceress Huld — the saga describes how the creature first 'trod on his legs', then crushed his head — the earliest recorded mara incident in Scandinavia. In Slavic tradition (Polish zmora, Czech můra, South Slavic mora), the Mara may be either a demonic being or the wandering soul of a living person, often a woman, with traits such as a connected unibrow used to identify her; protective practices included placing brooms or upside-down slippers by the bed and offering food.

Also Known As

• Mare (Old English, England)
• Mara (Old Norse, Scandinavia)
• Mara (Swedish / Norwegian / Danish, Scandinavia)
• Zmora / Mora (Polish, Poland)
• Můra (Czech, Czech lands)
• Mora (South Slavic, Balkans)

Etymology

Origin:

Proto-Germanic *marōn (compare Old English mære, Old Norse mara, Old High German mara), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to crush' or 'to press'. The same root underlies Slavic mora / mara.

Meaning:

'Crusher' or 'oppressor' — referring to the suffocating chest-pressure experienced by victims.

First Use:

Attested in Old English and Old Norse from the early medieval period; the compound 'nightmare' (Middle English nyght-mare) is attested by the late 13th–14th century.

Timeline

• 1230-01-01 — Snorri Sturluson's Ynglinga saga (within Heimskringla) records King Vanlandi Sveigðisson being killed by a mara summoned by the Sámi sorceress Huld (Earliest narrative reference to a mara in Scandinavian literature)
• 1450-01-01 — Polish 15th-century medical and pastoral sources record nocnice / zmora attacks and protective practices (Earliest detailed Slavic documentation)

Sightings & Evidence

Cultural Significance

Across Germanic and Slavic Europe, the Mara was treated as a real cause of bad dreams and chest-pressure during sleep, and protective practices were widespread.

Related Phenomena

• Mare — English / Germanic spelling of the same nightmare spirit
• Alp — German nightmare creature; German Albtraum 'alp-dream' = nightmare
• Old Hag — Newfoundland sleep-paralysis tradition
• Incubus / Succubus — Latin Christian sleep-attack demons
• Kanashibari — Japanese sleep-paralysis tradition

Tags

Sources

• Mare (folklore) — Wikipedia
• Heimskringla (including Ynglinga saga)
• Sleep paralysis and the structure of waking-nightmare hallucinations — Dreaming