Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

In Search of the Hag March 18, 2025

David Hufford’s study of nightmare is well known. Many of us have had the experience of feeling a crushing weight on our chest while sleeping. This experience is often associated with a creeping sense of menace and often the presence of some supernatural bogey in the room: it is even sometimes claimed that the supernatural bogey is sitting on the chest of the victim. Hufford referred to this, using a term from Atlantic Canada, with British antecedents, ‘the hag’. Several months ago, Beach gave some examples of ‘hag’ experiences from Trip Advisor: the experience is clearly a common one. However, his attempts to track down the hag in ghost stories and ghost experiences from prior to 1950 has been much less successful. Can anyone help here? This is the one example, he came up with. A squire from Calverley Hall in the West Riding was killed by pressing in 1604.

‘But a clergyman who visited Calverley Hall about Christmas time was unpleasantly reminded of the dead criminal’s post-mortem activity. The reverend gentleman felt something creep on to his chest as he lay in bed, pressing him very hard, and was then thrown three times on to the floor. ‘ Mid Sussex Times, 17 Dec 1907

There must be dozens of other examples. But this is the only significant one that Beach has found, and given the way in which the squire was killed, it might be explained by other considerations. Can any one send any others in? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com