To our European forebears, the world of faerie was a very real thing. Evil or mischievous faeries were to be placated through strict adherence to ritual and custom, lest their ire be invoked. An angry faerie was a dangerous faerie: crops could go to ruin, milk sour, family members take ill, and fortunes be lost. While the advance of science and reason put many of these traditions to bed, some of them survived in the form of popular idioms and expressions. Let’s look at a few of them.
Spirited away: this expression usually refers to a person overwhelmed by excitement or mood, or as an explanation for an object that has mysteriously disappeared. However, its origins like in the belief that faeries or spirits could take possession of a person or thing and whisk it away to their own realm.
The Bogey Man: a “bogey man” refers to any unknown and likely spurious object of fear, particularly that of children, although sometimes it is also used to ridicule an overly cautious adult. The phrase is likely derived from one of dozens of similar-sounding names for goblin-like creatures – booka, pooka, boggart – blamed for household mischief and woe.
Nightmare: bad dreams were once thought to be caused by evil spirits, specifically a Mara, a goblin that sits on people’s chests while they sleep.
Hag: today, “hag” refers to an unattractive old woman. Back in the Dark Ages, hag was synonymous with witch. Both sleep paralysis syndrome and erotic dreams were blamed on hags, rumored to have the ability to “ride” a male sleeper, holding him motionless until dawn. Such an experience was described as being “hag-ridden.”
Knock on wood: this is used now as a figure of speech, a half-serious invocation of luck. It wasn’t always this way, though. At one time, trees were thought to be inhabited by faeries, and to knock on wood meant to rap a tree with your knuckles to invoke the spirit dwelling within.
Very interesting post! I look forward to the rest of the week.