page_title: Mare (folklore)
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Mare (folklore) / By region / Slavic countries / Poland
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Grafika Kasi Walentynowicz przedstawiająca zmorę – postać z polskiej demonologii ludowej – w postaci kota duszącą człowieka. Grafika ilustruje tekst Oskara Kolberga opublikowany w tomach Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie, Cz. 7, Krakowskie, cz. 3, Radomskie, Cz. 2
context_page_description: A Mare is a malicious entity in Germanic and Slavic folklore that rides on people's chests while they sleep, bringing on bad dreams.
context_section_description: Etymologically, Polish zmora/mara is connected to Mara/Marzanna, a demon of winter. It could be a soul of a person (alive or dead) such as a sinful woman, someone wronged or someone who died without confession. Other signs of someone being a mare could be: being the seventh daughter, having one's name pronounced in a wrong way while being baptised, having multicoloured eyes or a unibrow (exclusive to Kalisz region, Poland). If a woman was promised to marry a man, but then he married another, the rejected one could also become a mare during the nights. A very common belief was that one would become a mare if they mispronounced a prayer - e.g. Zmoraś Mario instead of Zdrowaś Mario (an inverted version of Hail Mary). The mare can turn into animals and objects, such as cats, frogs, yarn, straw or apples. People believed that the mare drained people - as well as cattle and horses - of energy and/or blood at night.
  Common protection practices included:
  drinking coffee grounds before sleeping,
  taking the mare's hat,
  throwing a piece of a noose at the demon,
  sleeping with a leather, wedding belt or a scythe,
  inviting the mare for breakfast,
  changing one's sleeping position,
  smearing feces on the front door,
  leaving a bundle of hay in one's bed and going to sleep in another room.
  To protect the cattle, horses etc., people hanged mirrors over the manger (to scare the mare with its own face) or affixed dead, predatory birds on the stable's door. Sometimes the horses were given red ribbons, or they also were being covered in a stinking substance.
caption: Mare from Polish folklore - graphics by Kasia Walentynowicz
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