Hags and "hag-rid"

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152456

In an attempt to answer my own request to find amusing topics that
won't cause contention among list members (and failing to find
anything about goats and magic that was worth exploring in relation to
Aberforth), I turned to etymologies.

We've been told by the Lexicon that "Hagrid" (cf. "haggard") means
what it appears to mean, "ridden by hags," and that it's an old name
for sleep paralysis ("the sensation of being held immobile in bed"),
but I suspected a further connection between hags and succubi, the
haglike female spirits who were believed in medieval times to cause
nightmares, so I consulted the Online Etymology Dictionary (also used
by the Lexicon compilers, as it's very useful and derived from
authoritative sources):

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=h 

There's a lot of interesting information on hags (which in the HP
books seem to to me represent the stereotyped view of witches as ugly
old women who eat, if not children, then raw liver). Etymologically,
the word derives (as the Lexicon says) from the Old English word
"haegtesse," which (the Lexicon to the contrary) does *not* mean
"hedge rider" but "witch" or "Fury" (like the three Furies in Greek
mythology) plus an unknown suffix. (There is, however, a possible
connection in the suffix with an Old Norse word that translates
literally as "hedge rider" and was used for witches and ghosts and the
Old English term may have developed that sense later when the
influence of paganism was fading.)

More interesting to me is the absence of a male form for the word
"haegtesse" and its use in Old English for "a woman of prophetic or
oracular powers." The source notes that diviners and soothsayers were
always female in European paganism, so there's a link here with Sibyll
(or Sybill, depending on whether you have the American or British
editions) Trelawney and her great-great-grandmother Cassandra (whose
first names also indicate their "seeress" connection). The dictionary
notes that the Anglo-Saxon historian Aelfric used the word to
translate the Greek word for the oracle at Delphi, which translates
literally as "Pythoness"--so, a connection between seers and snakes,
along with the witch/hag/seer connection inherent in the word
"haegtesse" itself.

To return to Hagrid and the idea of a sleeper being "ridden" by such
beings. In the Middle Ages, nightmares were believed to be caused by
incubi (the Late Latin word for "nightmare" was "incubo," literally
one who lies down on the sleeper"). Incubi were demons who caused a
feeling of suffocation in the sleeper. The word "nightmare" ("night"
plus "mare," meaning "incubus) referred to the same demons, who were
regarded as female. Later, the word "succubus" was used for the female
demons who "rode" male sleepers, with a definite sexual connotation
not necessarily present in the original sense of the word (or in JKR's
use of "hag-rid"). By the mid-sixteenth century, "nightmare" had come
to mean the suffocating sensation caused by such spirits (sleep
paralysis?), and by 1829, when few if any Englishmen or -women
believed in incubi or succubi, the word had come to mean any bad dream.

I still can't find any direct etymological connection between hags and
succubi/incubi, but the concept appears to be the same: a hag "rides"
the sleeper and causes sleep paralysis/ a sense of suffocation/
nightmares, resulting in a "hagrid"/"haggard" appearance. (Could
Draco's appearance be described as "hagrid," erm, "haggard," when he's
evidently suffering from sleep deprivation in HBP? How about Lupin's
after a transformation?)

Since JKR invented Hagrid very early in the series, at a point when
Harry was an infant and her prospective readers, if any, were
visualized as children of, say, ten or eleven, I doubt very much that
she had the sexual connotations of incubi or succubi in mind, but I'm
certain that she had a private little laugh imagining the gigantic
Hagrid "ridden" by hags (in a nonsexual way), one of her many little
plays on words (cf.  the "griffin door" knocker and the names of the
various textbook authors). Note that she has softened (bowdlerized,
Kemper?) hags as well, from the evil creatures who eat children in the
Grimms' fairy tales (anyone know whether the witch is called a hag in
the original German?) to ugly old women who eat raw liver. (Sanguini
the Vampire seems equally harmless though I'm unsure why she's
bowdlerized Vampires in a book where evil creatures are starting to
appear, unless, again, it's to eliminate the sexual connotations.)

Which reminds me: Has anyone read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (not just
watched the movie)? I haven't, but I understand that it contains a
"mind bond" between Dracula and one of his victims resulting from an
exchange of blood. Possible influence on the Voldemort/Harry mind
connection and the blood exchange in GoF here, even though in this
case the bond predates Voldemort's use of Harry's blood?

Carol, not sure that any of this contributes to our understanding of
the books but interested in the ways in which JKR adapts traditional
materials and plays with language