Also called charm against the mare, Old Hag protection, hag stone on the bedpost
Old European ways of keeping the mare, the night spirit believed to sit on sleepers' chests, away from the bed: a holed stone on a red ribbon, slippers turned upside down, a broom behind the door. Today the mare is understood partly as sleep paralysis.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Do not keep knives or sharp blades under the bed, as some old customs suggest; a hag stone or broom does the same symbolic job. Frequent nightmares, sleep paralysis or night terrors can be linked to stress, sleep loss or medical conditions, so see a doctor if they are regular or distressing. Take only loose stones from beaches where collecting is allowed.
Scot advised hanging a naturally holed stone over the bed of anyone troubled by the mare. In the 1920s Edward Lovett still found holed stones tied to bedstead knobs on red string, and they were hung in stables to stop witches riding horses at night.
Uses: holed stone, red string
Folklorists recorded upside-down slippers by the bed, a broom set upside down behind the door, a belt laid over the sheets, and plugging the keyhole the mare came through. Some families offered her a bowl of food so she would leave the sleeper alone.
Uses: slippers, broom, belt
Newfoundlanders spoke of being 'hagged', waking unable to move with a weight on the chest. Hufford's study linked the experience across cultures to sleep paralysis while taking the reports seriously as lived experience.
The word nightmare comes from Old English maere, a spirit thought to sit on sleepers and press the breath out of them. The idea appears in the thirteenth-century Ynglinga saga, where a Swedish king is trampled to death by a mare in his sleep, and it runs through German, Scandinavian and Slavic folklore. Nineteenth-century collectors such as Oskar Kolberg in Poland recorded long lists of household defenses against her.
In England the favorite defense was a holed stone. Reginald Scot, writing in 1584, described hanging one over the bed, and the folklorist Edward Lovett found them on bedsteads in Surrey and Sussex in the 1920s. In 1982 the folklorist David Hufford published his study of the Old Hag of Newfoundland, showing that the frightening experience behind these charms closely matches what doctors call sleep paralysis.
A pebble with a natural hole worn through it, hung by a cord over a bed, a door or a stable to keep away nightmares, witches and bad luck.
A sealed bottle of pins, nails and personal traces hidden in a house to trap or turn back harmful magic aimed at the people living there.
Compass-drawn flowers, interlaced lines and Marian VV marks scratched near doors, windows and hearths to block evil from entering a building.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
