Case file · Folklore / legend
The Old Hag of Newfoundland
Newfoundlanders call it being 'hagged' or 'ridden by the Old Hag': waking paralyzed with a crushing, evil presence on the chest. Folklorist David Hufford's 1982 study of the belief, begun in Newfoundland, became a classic.
1982 CE · 47.57, -52.73 · status: explained
The account
Hufford found that people who had never heard the tradition described the same experience, and argued that the experience shapes the belief rather than the other way round. The study is now cited in research on alien-abduction and ghost experiences.