Talk:Mare (folklore)

Definition

According to The Online Etymology Dictionary:

nightmare, c.1290, "an evil female spirit afflicting sleepers with a feeling of suffocation," compounded from night + mare "goblin that causes nightmares, incubus," from O.E. mare "incubus," from mera, mære, from P.Gmc. *maron "goblin," from PIE *mora- "incubus," from base *mer- "to rub away, harm, seize" (cf. first element in O.Ir. Morrigain "demoness of the corpses," lit. "queen of the nightmare," also Bulg., Serb., Pol. mora "incubus;" Fr. cauchemar, with first element is from O.Fr. caucher "to trample"). Meaning shifted mid-16c. from the incubus to the suffocating sensation it causes. Sense of "any bad dream" first recorded 1829; that of "very distressing experience" is from 1831.

It is interesting to note that "mara" obviously has cognates in French (cauchemar), the Slavic languages (mora) and possibly Irish (Mórrígan). There is also a Polish night hag, Nocnitsa, which shows correspondence to the mara, just as the Greek Ephialtes. Now, sleep paralysis and witches are universal, so I'm not going to pull ye olde "When the proto-Indo-Europeans sat around the campfire, five thousand years ago ..." but it would be nice if someone with access to better sources in the original languages could look up the etymology for these respective beings. Salleman 17:44, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I looked up cauchemar in Dictionnaire de l'Académie française:

Mot picard, composé de cauche, impératif de l'ancien verbe cauchier, « presser, fouler », et de mar, emprunté du moyen néerlandais mare, « fantôme nocturne ». [1]

So it entered French from a Middle Dutch mare ... if anyone's interested :P --Salleman 15:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sanskrit?

I cut the following sentence from the pop culture section: "Mara is the Sanskrit word for evil". I don't know if someone wants to source it and incorporate it into the main text, but it sure doesn't belong where it was. Aleta 23:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The provisionaly Slavic folkloric concept of Mora is akin to Mara, and stems from the same Indo-European root. I suggest the two be merged. TomorrowTime (talk) 19:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, a merge could be done to show the possible Indo-European origin of the mare. It is strange that this article discusses Scandinavian and Slavic variations, when there's another article doing so too. My only criterion is that the different variations are clearly separated and discussed separately, while a section with theories of origin may bring them all in at once. –Holt T•C 06:31, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I've changed my opinion. An article called Mare (folklore) should have subsections for all the separate Scandinavian, Slavic, English etc. beliefs, and discuss the Indo-European origin. All different beliefs have their own main articles. I've edited this article to only reflect the Scandinavian beliefs, and will continue to add more information. –Holt T•C 00:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Mare and mare

Is there any relation between the female equine and the monster? Both share the same name and mares are believed to ride horses. Could someone detail more in depth this relation (if any)?
David Latapie (✒ | @) — www

There is no direct relation between the female horse and the folkloric creature. Their modern names might be the same, but the words have different origins. Mare "malevolent creature" derives from Old English mære, from Proto-Germanic *marōn-, while mare "female horse" comes from the Old English word mere, which possibly derives from the Proto-Germanic *márhijō-. –Holt (T•C) 02:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

And nightmare

Mare (folklore) begins, A mare or nightmare, but nightmare makes no mention of Mare (folklore.) I think all three articles should be merged, along with Moroi, into Maya (illusion). --Pawyilee (talk)

Modern "Nightmares"

In fantasy worlds today it's rather common that a Nightmare is the horse (Mare) itself - always, if not usually black. I can't think of any specific examples appart from "Magic Cards" though. --Kurtle (talk) 16:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Merge Request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was not to merge Tomdo08 (talk) 21:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

---

• Oppose. No, these are not the same beings. They have very different etymologies; alp is the German cognate to modern English elf. We certainly do not need a distinct article on the German being, and we do not need a distinct article on the Old Norse form; they all stem from the same Proto-Germanic being. They should all be handled together as in scholarly works on the topic. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:51, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

• Favor. Merge contents regarding generic alp/alb into Elf#German section. Merge aspects of the alp/alb (nachtalb) common to nightmare into Mare (folklore).
• Change to oppose. I have written notices on the talk pages of past contributors to the 2 articles, and further feedback may be incoming. But it already looks like a consensus for a merge isn't going to form. In fact I'm striking my old vote, and reversing to oppose merge. But I am only advocating keeping Alp (folklore) as an independent WP:SPINOFF article for mare (folklore) (cf. comment by Holt (talk · contribs) in the #Merger proposal above). Having discovered one can easily collect a large amount of material on the alp, so having an indy spinoff now seems preferable, that's all. --Kiyoweap (talk) 10:11, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree that Proto-Germanic etymology is grounds for barring a move into Mare (folklore), because in modern use alp/alb is defined as both "1. elf, .." and "2. nightmare" (Cassel's dictionary). I would also note that there is already a interwiki link from de:Nachtalb to Mare (folklore). Cf. Jacob Grimm: "Oppression during sleep is caused by the alp or mar"TM vol 3, p.1419 Also: "In jeder Nacht kam der Nachtalp (die nachtmârte) zu ihm und drückte ihn" from Niedersächsische sagen und märchen (1855), p.237 --Kiyoweap (talk) 08:23, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course, I'm not barring mention of the motif elsewhere. Note that the English elf article needs to be rewritten from the ground up and something similar could easily happen with the tomfoolery with have with the Norse dwarves and dwarf (Germanic mythology) article, where all of the dwarf mythology and folklore stuff should just be handled in the latter but any such progress is hindered by confused anonymous IPs (see the talk page for the latter). :bloodofox: (talk) 18:00, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

To retool what I said before, there seems literally be no scrap of medieval writing where Middle High German alp is definitively used in the elf/álfr "often benevolent tribe of supernatural beings" sense. I queried MHDBDB for alp, resulting in 8 occurrences, and some of the usage was only figurative (which are open to claims that a proto-German elf is meant, but nothing definitive), or denoted a spirit that tricked you (i.e. caused some symptom), or referred to the devil with its tricks. I suppose I might make edits to add info in the Elf#Etymology article. Alp as "nightmare" occurs in the charm Münchener Nachtsegen(quoted/translated in Alaric Hall's 2007 book and 2004 paper that Bloodofox has touched upon in talk:Elf ). At a certain point in history, the word Alp begins predominantly to denote "nightmare." (cf. Thun's article: "German Alb (Alp), Alf, Olf, in most cases a nightmare, sometimes a spirit of disease or even a devil."[2].) As elf already mentions, "Elf" was introduced into German as a loan word from English (in the 1740s according to Thun), and I suspect this is precisely because in the German language the word alp began to lose the meaning as an all-purpose sprite. --Kiyoweap (talk) 12:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Simply reading the first paragraph of the Alp article indicates a separate creature from the Mare, despite a propensity for the names to appear synonymous. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the German wiki also considers Leprechauns and Kobolds to be synonymous, so make of that what you will. There are noticeable traits that distinguish it from the Mare. Wearing a Tarnkappe which renders invisibility, weakness to lemons, attacking by "pressing", just to name a few obvious ones. There is a reason the German expression for relief goes "An Alp fell off my heart" and not "A mare fell off my heart." Alpdrucke, or Elf-pressure, is specific to the creature called Alp, not the Mare. Also, the Alp is almost invariably considered male, the Mare is often considered female. And regarding the usage of "Alp" and "Elf": it is considered an elf, more accurately a dark elf or dwarf, so of course it will say "elf" and "nightmare" when you look up the usage. Also, we would have to merge Drude as well, because they share passing resemblance to the Alp and Mare. Alppirate (talk) 04:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, folklorists such as Grimm and Adalbert Kuhn do say that alp go by other names such as mar(e) or trud (variant spelling of the Drude you mention). So even if not merged, there should be mutual reference among the three. All three forms occur in the Münchener Nachtsegen, and probably are synonyms or quite nearly so. In Alaric Hall's translation, one line reads "alb's mother, trute and mar" and another line translated "Let the mare not oppress me". The original of the latter line is "Noc mich dy mare druche", so yes, mare does indeed drücken as in Alpdrück (Elf-pressure), contrary to what you state. The current version of Alp (folklore) article sources too much from vampire references, so the information is flawed. --Kiyoweap (talk) 13:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. For the reasons stated, namely the facts that though similar terms are sometimes used (as is the same in English folklore where many creatures of different character have been described as "elfs", "goblins" and "ghosts") and though an alp may be a variety of mare however there is enough relevant information that makes that subtype worthy of a page. We also have the fact both pages are quite long and made up of largely different information. I do however agree that *some* sources are flawed on the alp page. Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I guess the discussion has ended. I am still not convinced that both names are not simply different names for the same mythologic entity. "Alp", "Alb", "Elf" certainly is used rather generically for otherwordly entities. On the other hand I am no expert and I have no scientific material at hand. I made links in the "See also" section, and I will remove the merge suggestion. Tomdo08 (talk) 21:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Succubi is evil

Since deviations stream from one possesion excluding protective sixth senses thus incubus, azrael and hızır ali are separate entities according to turanic alewittenism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.47.191.63 (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

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