The informant said after the girl went home, the hagger removed his clothes, knelt and said the Lord's Prayer backwards. He went under the covers, pulled out a knife and stabbed it in a side board several times. The man repeated, "Hag good Hag," from time to time.
The informant believed that while the hagger was in bed, his spirit hagged his victim. I think that the most likely explanation, if this is true, is that this was done by an out of body experience, OBE. OBEs have been researched and documented.
After this happened, the girl said that if she had known he was going to hag her, she would have had a bottle ready because of the belief that a spirit will die if it is swung at with one. When the man learned about the bottle, the hagging stopped.
There was the elderly woman who woke up every night for a month. She experienced cold sweats, panic and frenzy, as if she had epileptic seizures. She was treated for epilepsy. The treatment did nothing.
A doctor who had treated people in the community for over twenty years was consulted. He found out that the victim believed that an old lady who was known as a witch was witching her. His advice was for her to urinate in a bottle, cap it and put it under her bed, which she did.
Several days later, the reputed witch went to see the doctor to ask him to have the victim undo the bottle. He told her to remove the curse she had put on the victim. She did. Both of the women were cured.
The reason why the "witch" saw the doctor? She could not urinate.
Supernatural explanations are the oldest ones to be believed by Newfoundlanders. The belief continued into modern times.
Old Hag Syndrome.... Is the cause physical? Entities? Witchcraft? OBEs? Telepathy? Psychiatric? Psychological? Or combination of two or more? Each theory offers its own evidence and beliefs. Until there is more research, I rule nothing out.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. ISBN: 0-8160-2846-X.
Hufford, David J., The Terror that Comes in the Night. ISBN: 0-8122-1305-X.
Lombard, Eric, By Lust Possessed, 1980, New York, Signet. No ISBN.
