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Mara (folklore)

 

 
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Mara (folklore)
 
 
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In Scandinavian folklore
Scandinavian folklore

Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe, and the Finland Swedish.In Scandinavia the term 'folklore' is not often used in academic circles, instead terms such as Folketro or Folkesagn have been coined....
, a mara or a mare is a supernatural creature which is believed to torment people in their sleep by sitting on their chest and "riding" them, thus causing nightmare
Nightmare

A nightmare is a dream which causes a strong unpleasant emotional response from the sleeper, typically fear or horror, being in situations of extreme danger, or the sensations of pain, bad events, falling, drowning or death....
s. The mara is attested as early as in the Norse Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga

The Ynglinga saga was originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson about 1225. He based it on an earlier Ynglingatal which is attributed to the Norwegian 9th century skald ?j???lfr of Hvinir, and which also appears in Historia Norvegi?....
 from the 13th century, but the belief itself is likely to be considerably older. As in English, the name appears in the word for "nightmare" in the Nordic languages
North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
. The mara is similar to the mythical creatures succubus
Succubus

A Succubus is a demon who takes the form of a highly attractive woman to seduce men, in dreams to have sexual intercourse, according to the medieval European legend....
 and incubus
Incubus (demon)

An incubus is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions....
.

word mara is the Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
 form, and is cognate with Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
 and Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
 mare, Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
 and Faroese
Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
 mara, originating from Old Norse
Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
 mara.






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In Scandinavian folklore
Scandinavian folklore

Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe, and the Finland Swedish.In Scandinavia the term 'folklore' is not often used in academic circles, instead terms such as Folketro or Folkesagn have been coined....
, a mara or a mare is a supernatural creature which is believed to torment people in their sleep by sitting on their chest and "riding" them, thus causing nightmare
Nightmare

A nightmare is a dream which causes a strong unpleasant emotional response from the sleeper, typically fear or horror, being in situations of extreme danger, or the sensations of pain, bad events, falling, drowning or death....
s. The mara is attested as early as in the Norse Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga

The Ynglinga saga was originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson about 1225. He based it on an earlier Ynglingatal which is attributed to the Norwegian 9th century skald ?j???lfr of Hvinir, and which also appears in Historia Norvegi?....
 from the 13th century, but the belief itself is likely to be considerably older. As in English, the name appears in the word for "nightmare" in the Nordic languages
North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
. The mara is similar to the mythical creatures succubus
Succubus

A Succubus is a demon who takes the form of a highly attractive woman to seduce men, in dreams to have sexual intercourse, according to the medieval European legend....
 and incubus
Incubus (demon)

An incubus is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions....
.

Etymology and origins


Etymology

The word mara is the Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
 form, and is cognate with Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
 and Norwegian
Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
 mare, Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
 and Faroese
Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
 mara, originating from Old Norse
Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
 mara. Also cognate are German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
 Mahr, Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
 nachtmerrie and English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 nightmare, all deriving from proto-Germanic *
Asterisk

An 'asterisk' is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star ....
maron-. In Dutch and English the word is emphasized by the prefix "night". The French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 -mar in cauchemar "nightmare" is borrowed from Germanic through Old French
Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
 mare. The word can ultimately be traced back to the reconstructed
Linguistic reconstruction

Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of the unattested ancestor of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction....
 Indo-European
Indo-European

Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages* Indo-European people, peoples speaking an Indo-European language** Aryan race, a 19th-century term for Indo-European speakers...
 root
Proto-Indo-European root

The root of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic morphemes carrying a lexical meaning. By addition of suffixes, they form Stem , and by addition of Ending , these form grammatically inflected words ....
 *mer- "to rub away, harm".

In Norwegian and Danish, the words for "nightmare" are mareritt and mareridt respectively, which can be directly translated as "mare-ride". The Icelandic word martröð has the same meaning, whereas the Swedish mardröm translates as "mare-dream".

Beliefs

The mara was also believed to "ride" horses, which left them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning. She could also entangle the hair of the sleeping man or beast, resulting in "marelocks", called marflätor "mare-braids" or martovor "mare-tangles" in Swedish. The belief probably originated as an explanation to the Polish plait
Polish plait

Polish plait is a formation of hair. It can be viewed as a hairstyle similar to dreadlocks or a hair disease....
 phenomena, a hair disease. Even trees could be ridden by the mara, resulting in branches being entangled. The undersized, twisted pine-trees
Pine

Pines are Pinophyta trees in the genus Pinus, in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species....
 growing on coastal rocks and on wet grounds are known in Sweden as martallar "mare-pines".

See also

  • Mora (mythology)
    Mora (mythology)

    Mora are mostly malevolent folkloric beings associated with sleep that in some form or another can be found throughout Europe.In Polish folklore, mora are the souls of living people that leave the body during the night, and are seen as wisps of straw or hair or as moths....
    , Slavic
    Slavic

    Slavic and Slavonic are used interchangeably in English, with the former preferred in U.S. English, and the latter in UK English. The Oxford English Dictionary gives citations of Slavonic back to the mid-17th century, whereas it seems that Slavic only appeared in the 19th century....
     counterpart of the Scandinavian mara.
  • Sleep paralysis
    Sleep paralysis

    Sleep paralysis is a condition that may occur in normal subjects or be associated with narcolepsy, cataplexy, and hypnagogic hallucinations. The pathophysiology of this condition is closely related to the normal REM atonia that occur during REM sleep....
    , medical term for the condition the mara is thought to cause.