'Nightmare' - a path with no horses

Sometimes the path of a word’s story is darker than we originally predict.

Take the word nightmare, for instance. Imagine the following entry in a glossary of juvenile literature:

sin'-i-steed (noun) – a wild horse creature in Lois Lowry’s children’s novel Gossamer that inflicts nightmares upon sleeping humans. From sinister + steed, referring to –mare in ‘nightmare.’

Inspired by Lowry’s imaginative derivation, I looked up nightmare in my NOAD (New Oxford American Dictionary) – watching, of course, for an equine reference, but not really expecting to find one. After all, few of us wake up in a cold sweat over dreams of stampedes.

Unfortunately, I was right.

I suggest we button up our jackets, because a chill wind is blowing down this wooded path. The sunlight is suddenly veiled; night is falling with abnormal eagerness. You may want to mark the trail with pebbles or rocks, in case we lose our way, or need to make a fast retreat.

As we lean into the wind and press on against our better judgment, the question rises in our minds: what is the source of our nightmares? We know the signs: the pumping adrenaline; the struggle for breath; the body jerking upright in self-preservation; the sweat; the hand reflexively checking the chest, the center of life; the racing heartbeat. All humankind, regardless of language or culture, has intimate knowledge of this terror.

Our journey will reveal how our linguistic forefathers (and -mothers) explained this phenomenon.

Thick darkness has fallen around us now; there is no moon. We are in the Dark Ages in England; I can’t make out the time or place. The Anglo-Saxon domination of the native Britons is complete, down to the language that we now call Old English. Breaking through the eerie quiet, a woman's scream spits forth one word repeatedly in contempt and blind terror: Maere! The shadows shift palpably around us.

Old English maere means ‘incubus,’ a male demon that has sexual intercourse with sleeping women – not to be confused with the contemporary term mearh, ‘horse.’ We shudder in this place where people fear demons as a legitimate threat when their eyes are closed – or use them as an excuse for infidelity or deformity when their eyes are open. We turn back, hurriedly retracing our steps (thank you for marking it well) and search for the later marriage of night and maere, the spawn of our study.

The Middle Ages is where the official wedding takes place. We suspect the two were sleeping together long before this. But here we are struck by an interesting development: in place of the word nightmare, the people inhabiting England in this period are repeatedly referring to a “night hag." A peasant on a manor is trudging through the muck of a field, circles under his eyes, complaining about how the hag rode him all night. So now we observe that the ‘mare’ of nightmare has acquired a purely feminine meaning – that of a she-demon straddling a person’s chest to suffocate her victim’s breath, effectually trapping the soul.

Unsurprisingly, the Anglo-Saxon root maere has near cousins in other Germanic and Nordic languages – and so does our fateful word nightmare: in these countries today, the word for terrible dreams also means “she-demon of the night.” On our walk back to the present, the shadows retreat behind us and pale patches of sun hesitantly alight on the forest floor. Now that we are approaching safety, our inculcated superiority complex returns. We begin to dismiss our ancestors’ supernatural oppressors as figments of their uneducated imaginations. Dreams are just a product of our subconscious mind, we remind ourselves.

However, we are startled by a foggy trailhead hooking off of this path – the etymology of the word incubus itself. The Latin word incubo actually means – we stare at each other in disbelief – ‘nightmare,’ from Latin incubare meaning ‘lie on.’ Chilled by the implications, we hurry on toward the present . . . If peoples from various ancient times and cultures have perceived similar evil forces, could it be that our 21^st century senses are simply desensitized to a common reality?

Back in the shelter of our own era, we could distract ourselves by discussing the meaning of the word haggard, which surely is related to ‘hag ridden’ . . . or we could look at pictures from my European travels of Romanesque church carvings depicting demons attacking unfortunate medieval souls.

But eventually, we will have to close our eyes, as all our ancestors before us, and enter a dark world beyond our control.

Wishing you peaceful dreams until next time, no thanks to this journey –

Ety

“gossamer” – of medieval feasting, a humble saint and floating spider webs

The starting point for this adventure is Lois Lowry's children's novel by the same title. I found myself doubting my understanding of this word, gossamer. Filmy, transparent, yes . . . the phrase "gossamer wings" flitted through my brain. A friend of mine had applied the word to her recent dreams. Fortunately, I overcame laziness and rose from my comfortable, lap-blanketed reading spot to heft open my New Oxford American Dictionary. And here, Dear Reader, begins our first journey together. This definition with its concise etymological entry opened a door to an enticing, far-off world. I couldn’t resist stepping through. Would you like to come along?

Surprised to be standing at the edge of a rustic village, we feel our pockets for our beeping electronic gadgets, but they are gone. Instead, a chime of bells from the tallest tower proclaims the time. We see thousands of leaves in russets and golds, feel the warmth of the sun above them, and hear the sharp squawking and flapping of geese interplay with brusque, boisterous voices up ahead. A glinting movement catches our eye, and we spy strands of silk floating, revealing the gentle hand of the wind.

We have arrived in late autumn in medieval Britain, and as we enter the village, we hear joyful chatter about the turn in the weather: Use every minute to bring in the harvest, they say, before the second frost hits. Just look at those webs covering the bushes and grasses -- you can tell it’s almost St. Martin’s day. "This goose summer sure makes it easier to prepare for Martinmas," says one portly missus to her neighbor. "How are you going to cook your bird this year?" her companion asks. "With apples again, and onion," she replies.

And now you are turning to me for explanation, which I am bursting to share. For I myself searched for several answers to arrive here. First, though, isn’t it fascinating to be in a place and time where people mark life by the signs of nature and the nearest feast day? I imagine trading my literacy of the written word and my personal iCalendar for a literacy of the natural world, and a cultural adherence to the Church’s liturgical calendar. Mix in the anticipation of an annual roast bird, and we have the recipe for one deliciously complex word history.

St. Martin’s feast day is November 11, and that day, Martinmas (the mass of St. Martin), informally marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. “St. Martin’s summer” is an old English expression for a period of calm, warm weather in early November after the first frost (as opposed to “St. Luke’s summer” which refers to the same type of weather, but in October near St. Luke’s feast day). The American term “Indian summer” has a similar meaning, without the harness to a particular month.

Now, St. Martin himself has an entertaining life story, for a fourth century cleric. A humble man, he refused to become bishop of Tours, and supposedly tried to hide so that his zealous supporters couldn’t crown him by force. Unfortunately for him, he concealed himself near some loudmouthed (or rather, loudbeaked) geese that promptly gave him away. Party for this reason, the goose became a symbol of St. Martin – the patron saint of geese and vintners, among other fortunate beings. And so, what better dish to serve on Martinmas, the main feast day before Advent, than a succulent roast goose (accompanied by wine, of course)!

Here is where the common people add their spice to the story. Looking forward to that main course, they dubbed a “St. Martin’s summer” the Middle English word gosesomer –“goose summer,” literally. (We have to remember, Dear Reader, that our new medieval friends probably don’t consume meat on a daily basis.) That warm snap in weather meant it was time to start fattening the bird.

But another element enters the scene, or rather dominates – the cobwebs of tiny spiders floating on the calm breeze. These were ubiquitous in early November in this region, and evidently more reliable than the fickle weather for indicating when to prepare the goose. How do we know? Because the people transferred the name gosesomer to these webs.

So now you nod at me with a knowing smile, and we turn to listen to the villagers verbally bestow the rich symbolism of weather, saints and feasts upon these filmy, silken strands. Our sojourn here complete, we turn back toward the present, meandering so we can witness the word’s gradual detachment from these symbols, tethers loosened by generations of speech and imagination. Then we watch as immigrants carry it to the New World, where only the symbolism of the webs themselves remains, and the linguistic transformation from “goose summer” to “goss-a-mer” is complete.

I am so glad that you joined me on my first adventure. I was tempted to wander off on some side trails, such as to the Basilica of St. Martin in Tours, France, where I once physically stood, and toward an understanding of the expression “my goose is cooked.” But for now, these paths lie untouched, hidden by the gossamer curtain that veils the unexpressed and unexplored.

Until next time, when we’ll clear more webs away –

Ety