Narratives and Rituals of the Nightmare Hag in Scandinavian Folk Belief

Catharina Raudvere is Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies in the Section for the History of Religions at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

• Part I: Why the Nightmare Hag?.- 1. Why the Nightmare Hag? Points of departure.- PART II: Imagining the Nightmare Hag and Warding Her Off.- 2.Imagining of the Nightmare Hag.- 3. Protection Against the Nightmare Hag.- 4. The Nightmare Hag and Magic Thinking.- Part III: Narrating About the Nightmare Hag.- 5. A Model for an Analysis of the Hag Legends.-  6. Analogy Legends.- 7. Curse Legends.- 8. The Man Who Caught the Hag.- 9.The Nightmare Hag: narrative figure, personal experience and explanation of misfortune. Some concluding remarks.