The Old Hag of Newfoundland
In Newfoundland, people say you can wake in the night unable to move, with a weight on your chest and someone in the room. They call it being 'hagged'.
What was reported
In Newfoundland folklore, the Old Hag comes at night and sits on a sleeper's chest. People describe waking up but being unable to move or call out, feeling a crushing pressure, hearing footsteps, and sensing, or seeing, an evil presence close by.
Being 'hagged' was so common that people had remedies for it, from calling the sleeper's name backwards to keeping a knife or a Bible by the bed. In the 1970s, the folklorist David Hufford studied the experience there, and found people all over the world described it in the same way.
Explanations offered
It's sleep paralysis: a state between dreaming and waking, in which the body stays paralysed as in dreams while the mind wakes, often with vivid sensations of a presence. Many cultures have a name for it, and it's surprisingly common. It's harmless, though terrifying.
- When
- Told for generations
- Where
- St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- Witnesses
- Many Newfoundlanders, in their own words
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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