# Mare (folklore)
A mare is a supernatural being of Germanic and Slavic folklore, usually female, that visits sleepers at night, sits or rides on their chest, and brings bad dreams and a feeling of suffocation; it is the source of the English word "nightmare" and is not related to the female horse of the same name.[1](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/nightmare.html) The word nightmare, first recorded around 1300, originally meant this evil female spirit afflicting sleepers with a feeling of suffocation, and only from the mid-16th century did it shift to the suffocating sensation itself, then to "any bad dream" by 1829.[2](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nightmare) Modern sleep science identifies the underlying experience as sleep paralysis, a state in which a person wakes briefly unable to move while REM dreams continue.[3](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2054270415598091)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Being | A malicious entity, usually female, that sits, walks, or "rides" on sleepers' chests and causes nightmares[1](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/nightmare.html) |
| Etymology | Old English *mære*, from Proto-Germanic \*maron "goblin"; cognate with Old Norse *mara* and German *Mahr*[4](https://www.etymonline.com/word/mare) |
| Not the horse | The horse word *mare* descends from a different root, Old English *meare*, feminine of *mearh* "horse"[4](https://www.etymonline.com/word/mare) |
| Word history | "Nightmare" recorded c. 1300 as the spirit; "any bad dream" by 1829; "very distressing experience" from 1831[2](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nightmare) |
| Related terms | Danish *mareridt*, Norwegian *mareritt*, Icelandic *martröð*, Swedish *mardröm*, German *Alptraum*, French *cauchemar*[1](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/nightmare.html) |
| Slavic kin | Polish *zmora*, Croatian *morica*, Serbian *mòre*, Czech *muera*, Russian *kikimora*[5](https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/743/1/103471.pdf) |
| Modern reading | The experience matches sleep paralysis, first clinically described in 1664 as "Incubus or the Night-Mare"[3](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2054270415598091) |
## The being in folk belief
The mare appears in Scandinavian records from the [Viking Age](https://www.edgepedia.org/viking-age). An Icelandic skaldic poem and kings' saga tell of a king killed by a mara, and two medieval Norwegian laws imposed fines on women who "rode" men while also warning against men who similarly rode a person or an animal.[6](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara) In Anglo-Saxon sources the being appears as *mære*, glossed as a night-mare or *incuba*, and a medical charm prescribes remedies "against night-going ones and maran," alongside the formula "Gif mon mare ríde" ("if one rides a mare").[7](https://bosworthtoller.com/22173) A 1420 Swedish book of consolation, *Själen tröst*, warns against believing in maror or elves.[6](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara)
**What the mare did.** In Swedish tradition, recorded by the Institute for Language and Folklore, the mara entered the bedroom silently through a chimney, a window, the smallest crack in the wall, or most often the keyhole. Sleepers felt it hard to breathe, as if someone sat on the chest pressing down over the ribcage; the body became paralyzed and the victim could not call for help.[6](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara) Animals were also targets, especially horses: horses found sweat-soaked and exhausted in the morning were said to have been ridden by the mara, and tangled plaits in their manes and tails, called *marflätor* or *martovor*, were taken as clear signs of her visit.[6](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara)
**Who could be a mare.** The mara was often imagined as a young, beautiful woman, though she could also appear as a man or as a furry animal, sometimes a cat, sometimes a dog, and occasionally a bird, most often an owl.[6](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara) In some accounts she was a cursed person: if a mother used magic to escape the pains of childbirth, her daughter became a mara and her son a werewolf. In northern Sweden she was an envious, malicious neighbor who transformed herself voluntarily to torment other villagers, a belief that reflects distrust of outsiders and parallels ideas about witches.[6](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara) In Croatian tradition the mare is a usually female creature that changes shape, for example into a cat or a fly, to enter people's dreams, and widespread belief holds that she is born in a placenta of red, blue, or black color, which gives her great power to do evil; Croatian folk tradition specifies that a mare can be neither a small girl nor a married woman, but a sexually mature girl who becomes a witch once married.[8](https://hrcak.srce.hr/en/clanak/158383) In Poland the corresponding being, the zmora, was classified in the ethnolinguistic dictionary *Slavianskie drevnosti* as double-souled, though the belief that a zmora has two souls is relatively rare in Polish folk tradition.[9](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015587X.2022.2088957)
## Etymology and the words for nightmare
The *mare* of nightmare is a distinct word from the *mare* that means a female horse. The horse word comes from [Old English](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-english) *meare* (also *mere*, *myre*), feminine of *mearh* "horse," from Proto-Germanic \*marhijo-, said to be of Gaulish origin.[4](https://www.etymonline.com/word/mare) The demon word is Old English *mare* or *mære*, from Proto-Germanic \*maron "goblin," cognate with Middle Low German *mar*, [Old High German](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-high-german) *mara*, German *Mahr*, and [Old Norse](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-norse) *mara*; etymologists connect this family to the Proto-Indo-European root \*mer- "to rub away, harm," which also forms words for death.[4](https://www.etymonline.com/word/mare) The mare survives in English only inside the compound *nightmare*; an Old English word for the night-mare itself was *niht-genga*, "night-goer," and an 11th-century gloss rendered Latin Echo as *wudumære*, "wood-mare."[2](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nightmare)
Many European languages build their word for nightmare on the same figure: Danish *mareridt* and Norwegian *mareritt* mean "mare-ride," Icelandic *martröð* "mare-ride," Swedish *mardröm* "mare-dream," and German *Alpdruck* or *Alptraum* uses the alp, a related Germanic being.[1](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/nightmare.html) French *cauchemar* is a hybrid combining [Old French](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-french) *caucher* "to trample" with a Germanic *-mar* element.[2](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nightmare) The mare concept also underlies central and eastern European terms for nightmare: *zmora* in Polish, *morica* in Croatian, *mòre* in Serbian, *muera* in Czech, and *kikimora* in Russian.[5](https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/743/1/103471.pdf) In Scotland, the [Dictionary](https://www.edgepedia.org/dictionary) of the Scots Language records *mare* as a goblin popularly supposed to cause nightmare, and a *mare-stane*, a rough river stone hung in a stable, was believed to protect horses from being ridden by the hag.[10](https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/mare)
## Sleep paralysis and witchcraft
The experience the mare explains is strikingly uniform. Victims of nocturnal oppression in early-modern Europe described a similar set of symptoms in witch-trial records and other writings, and contemporary English authors termed the experience the "mare" or "nightmare."[11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587032000104211) A 1664 Dutch physician's case histories contain what is perhaps the earliest clinical description, diagnosing the malady as "Incubus or the Night-Mare," notable because the doctor diagnosed a piece of folklore as the patient's illness.[3](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2054270415598091) In 1735 the physician John Bond's "An Essay on the Incubus, or Night-Mare," one of the earliest modern European treatments, described the attack as beginning with frightful dreams followed by difficult respiration, a violent oppression on the breast, and a total loss of voluntary motion, and noted that it generally seizes people sleeping on their backs.[12](https://time.com/6241946/animals-trauma-sleep-nightmares/)
Today this experience is identified as sleep paralysis, which affects about one in five people and during which roughly 40% of experiencers report hallucinations, often an intruder that attacks, chokes, or crushes the chest.[13](https://time.com/6259846/sleep-paralysis-ghosts/) The folklore attached real consequences to the experience: nocturnal assault featured in European witchcraft accusations, and historical accounts of the nightmare align with modern clinical reports of the condition.[11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587032000104211) The connection between belief and experience can be powerful in both directions. Among immigrant Laotian Hmong men in the United States, who died at a rate of 92 per 100,000 from Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome beginning in 1977, researchers observed a link between sleep paralysis occurring at two to four times the usual rate, belief in the *dab tsog*, a crushing nightmare spirit that sits on the chest, and stress as possible catalysts for the deaths.[3](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2054270415598091)
**The image.** [Henry Fuseli](https://www.edgepedia.org/henry-fuseli)'s 1781 painting *The Nightmare* visualizes the traditional meaning, showing a woman asleep while an incubus sits on her abdomen, and it remains the standard pictorial shorthand for the old belief.[12](https://time.com/6241946/animals-trauma-sleep-nightmares/)
## References
1. [Night-Mares: Demons that Cause Nightmares, D. L. Ashliman, University of Pittsburgh](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/nightmare.html)
2. [Etymology of nightmare, Online Etymology Dictionary](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nightmare)
3. [Ann M. Cox (2015). Sleep paralysis and folklore. JRSM Open.](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2054270415598091)
4. [Etymology of mare, Online Etymology Dictionary](https://www.etymonline.com/word/mare)
5. [Nightmares, hags and horses: sleep paralysis in European witchcraft accusations, University of Hertfordshire](https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/id/eprint/743/1/103471.pdf)
6. [Mara, Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore)](https://www.isof.se/folkminnen/amnesomraden/folktro-och-forestallningsvarldar/lar-dig-mer-om-vasen-i-folktron/vasengalleriet/mara)
7. [mære, Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary online](https://bosworthtoller.com/22173)
8. [Sandra Barešin (2013). Mare as Supernatural Being of Traditional Culture. Ethnologica Dalmatica 20.](https://hrcak.srce.hr/en/clanak/158383)
9. [Agnieszka Pieńczak (2023). The Polish Nightmare Being (Zmora) and the Problem with Defining the Category of Supernatural Double-Souled Beings. Folklore.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015587X.2022.2088957)
10. [MARE n., Dictionary of the Scots Language](https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/mare)
11. [Owen Davies (2003). The Nightmare Experience, Sleep Paralysis, and Witchcraft Accusations. Folklore 114(2).](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587032000104211)
12. [What If Animals Have Nightmares Too? (on Bond 1735 and Fuseli 1781), TIME](https://time.com/6241946/animals-trauma-sleep-nightmares/)
13. [Why Sleep Paralysis Makes You See Ghosts, TIME](https://time.com/6259846/sleep-paralysis-ghosts/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Philosophy, religion, and mythology › Mythology and folklore › Legendary creatures and beings › Ghosts and the undead*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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