Dan in San Diego wondered whether the mare in nightmare is a horse. It isn’t. In old folklore, a mare, German Mahr, was a goblin or demon thought to press on a sleeper’s chest and bring terrifying dreams. The same heavy image turns up in Spanish pesadilla, related to peso, “weight,” and in Latin incubus, a spirit imagined as lying upon someone in sleep. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Nightmare” Comes from German “Nachtmar,” a Goblin in Nighttime Folklore”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how’s it going? My name is Dan. I’m calling from San Diego, California.
Hi, Dan. Things are outstanding here. Welcome to the show.
The other day, my girlfriend and I were listening to your show, and we just had this random question come to our minds. Kind of thought of the word nightmare. Where does it come from? Kind of what does the term nightmare mean? Because you have daydreams, but then you have nightmares, and it’s kind of different from like a night terror or a night scare. And I just kind of didn’t know what the term, I guess, mare meant from nightmare. You think maybe it has something to do with horses? I mean, that’s kind of what immediately comes to mind. But I’m not sure if that’s really, I know the connection between like a dream and a horse. I wasn’t sure where that came from.
Yes. Well, Dan, your skepticism is well placed because it doesn’t have to do with horses. Right. There’s a long tradition in folklore of imaginary demons or goblins coming and just sitting on your chest while you’re sleeping. And the German term for that kind of goblin is mar, M-A-H-R. And we get the word nightmare from Nachtmar. That is a goblin that comes and sits on your chest during the night.
Interesting. Oh, wow. And you see this again and again. For example, in Spanish, the word for nightmare is pesadilla, which is related to peso. It has to do with weight, a small weight on your chest. And so it’s kind of this creepy notion that something comes and just weighs down on your chest and causes all kinds of terrors. There’s also the Latin word incubus that means the same thing. It’s related to incubate.
No, that’s outstanding stuff. Not a horse at all, but that connection has been made so often that I have seen many, many, many books and illustrations that have beautiful, you know, dark horses running in the night and trampling your dreams. Yeah, but there are also gorgeous paintings of mares, Mars, you know, that just beautiful old romantic era paintings of these demons that come and sit on your chest. Really worth looking up.
Dan, thank you so much for your call. All right. Thank you very much. Take care now. Bye-bye. All right. Bye-bye. Bye.
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