Browse:Witch rides Person (Volume 1, entries 429–438)
Witch rides Person
Volume 1, entries 429–438. Source context: SPIRITS → THE HAG - WITCH IN HAG FORM. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 429
Dey say a witch is a ole woman - say it's when a woman lives to be years old an' say she takes, gits to whare she'll come out 'er hide. She'll come out 'er skin, say at night when she gits ready to go out to do her devilment; say she'll git out 'er hide an' then she'll go out necked with dis heah skin off 'er. Say den, when she go out, say she kin go through yore keyhole anywhares - jump in de keyhole an' come in to whare yo' is. When she come in dey says she come in to yo' by night, and she's one of dese things then whut chew call - dey don't use a man at night. Make yo' have nightmares, yo' know. Sometime dey nature gits so high till dey jes' - at night, dey dreamin' yo' know. Dat's a witch - say dat's whut she's doin' at night when she comes into yore house.
Entry 430
A witch is something that comes to your bed after you lays down and he rides you. You can't speak either when he gets on you, they say. They just ride you till they bring you to nothing. You get so poor you can hardly live. You can't holler. You think you are hollering but you ain't saying anything. Some people call them nightmares now. Dey tell me, that if they once start after you, it's hard to break them off.
Entry 431
I knew a man that use to belong to this church, Tyree [African Methodist Episcopal] Church [just out of Berlin, Maryland]. It was his mother-in-law. She was one of these witches. So she got him in kin'a poor health, the way he told the story. Someone told him to catch her when she was riding him. When you are in bed asleep they get on you and bear on you. They ride horses too and tangle the manes. And so he caught his mother-in-law, so he told me. After that she came to so she couldn't talk, and just natch'ly pined away. She talked round - you couldn't understand her - until she died. Some call that nightmare.
Entry 432
Mah stepmother told a story of her father an' a witch. Her father went to sleep - he'd often heard tha' chew kin ketch witches if yo' put a Bible undah yo' haid - so he placed the sifter an' some mustard seed down besides the bed an' he went to sleep. The witch tried to lure him to sleep, he said, but jes' about de time dat she thought he was asleep she started to do something to him and he grabbed her; an' immediately when he hollered fo' his mother tuh come an' bring a light, she vanished out of his hands. Ah don't know how but that's all she tole me.
Entry 433
They say when they catch dem [witches] it's nothing but a bunch of rags: Dey turn into snakes and turn into a squich [screech] owl. A man told me he catch her and he hollered for his wife to bring the light, and it turned into a snake and slipped out of his hand. My uncle, he was laying in bed and de witch pitched right on de foot of de bed. And when he drawed his foot up to kick her, den she left. The witch looked just lak a little squich owl. Dat Was in slavery time here.
Entry 434
My mother was in bed, my mother and father had gone to bed, and mother Was making a funny noise like they do when they try to get their breath. And my father saw this old witch leaning over my mother. And my father knew it was her. They called it riding her. So he jumped up and grabbed her. He saw her. She looked like herself but she was not as visible. And my father said she changed just as quick. She turned into a leather strap and slipped through his hand. He stood there holding the strap. [An interesting little document - a man with strap in hand standing over sleeping wife!] [New York City, (1), by hand; Gaston Co., N. Car.,1890.]
Entry 435
I know a woman once who was a famiZar hag. She got mad with me because I was going to see another woman and wouldn't look after her. So she told me one day, "I am going to get even with you." So I told 'er it was all right, that if she was to monk [monkey] with me I would shoot 'er. She told me that I couldn't shoot 'er. So I said, "All right, you just try it." So after I had been over to my girl's house, you know, I went over to my batch. And after going home I had a chain on my door. Just as I undressed and went to bed I heard de chain rattle on my door and I wasn't a bit sleepy at that minute. After I got my clothes off I sat on the bed, I lit my pipe and began to smoke. As I smoked I began to get drowsy. Den I saw the door open and I saw de form of dis woman walking in. She came to me and used the expression by saying, "Shish, shish." And when she got close to me I fell asleep. When I fell asleep she jumped right on top of me and she rode me perilous and it was all I could do to catch her by the thumb, but hold her I could not. And when she got away from me I woke up immediately and she was gone. [Hampton, Va., (27), Ed.; near Hampton,1918.]
Entry 436
Way people go [travel], call a hag - ya' evah hear dat?
(Yes, yes. What do they do about that?)
And [a hag] goes out fishing - [she] open de light [old-time dark lantern] - jest like a torch [when lantern opened] and a man said one day he coming in de night - it was dark - an' he saw de light opening and he take out a knife - new steel knife and he hold 'em on it.
(He pointed this knife toward this light.) [See No. 517.]
An' de woman came direct up to him out de pond [where she had been fishing] - out de wood. He say, "Who dat? You?" It say, "Yes." He say, "Whatchu doin' heah?" It say, "Ah." It's a woman - ole woman - she said, "Don't tell nobody [see 'Shish, shish" in No. 435]." An' soon dat mornin' he come and tell my mother. Say he seed a hag last night - so it was so.
(What was she supposed to be?)
She a hag.
(And when she goes around she looks like a light?)
Yeah.
(Like a Jack-o'-lantern?)
Yah - dat's it. (Oh, a hag is a jack-o'-lantern?) [Travels like a jack-o'-lantern - see my comment at beginning of this subsection.l Yeah.
(Then that's true?) [I repeat his so it was so.]
Yeah, dat's a fac' and if it came to yo' house today and yo' want prove it, yo'd take yo' broom and put it to dat door, cross de door - he'll nevah go out de door today, he'll take up dat broom before he go out dere. I've seed dat.
Entry 437
(When a person wakes up in the morning?)
Yeah - it's jes' kinda lak a mucus in de corners of de mouth.
(And it comes from the mouth?)
Uh-hum.
(And they say that's the effect of what?)
It is de after effect of de hag ridin' yo' through dat night. [The informant had just made this brief statement while my Telediphone was switched off. This is a laborious attempt to obtain a repetition.] [Sumter, S. Car. (1344a), 2327:14.]
Entry 438
Now, I will tell you somepin that's a coincident [coincidence because I had just asked about witch-ridingl. It actually happened to me last week [August 1936, at Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, Maryland, where my wife and I were staying while I collected hoodoo]. I was asleep one morning. I don't know whether I was dreaming or what happened, but I jumped and fell on the floor and I busted my knee. I thought a rat was riding me. After falling on the floor I tried to go out of the room and then I awoke. It must have been a nightmare or a dream or somepin. I really busted my knee. I found the rat wasn't there. I don't know whether I was doing somepin and somebody was riding me or not - that somebody was getting it back on me. I don't know anything in particular to account for it. [Ocean City, Md., (18), Ed. Informant was a young man who had graduated recently from a large high school in North Carolina.] [More examples of hag-or-witch riding will be found in the following margin- titles.]
The knee injury is claimed in the unbracketed account; bracketed interview context is editorial, and the cause is explicitly uncertain.