"nightmare"

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/31/2000 1:47:08 PM, larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk writes:

<< The only Basque word for 'nightmare' in the 'creature' sense I know of
is <inguma>.  This is pretty clearly of Latino-Romance origin, though
the direct source would appear to be an unrecorded Latin *<incuba>,
an altered form of the familiar <incubus>.  So far as I am aware, the
Basque word is unmarked for sex, and it translates both 'incubus' and
'succubus'. >>

Larry, what ending would you have expected from the Latin -us?  By that I
mean, the "-a" is not expected from the latin "-us? -- what would normally be
there?

Just some other observations: there is a Latin verb with pretty much the same
meanings, <incumbo, incumbere>, and an attested <incumba>, that seems to be
recorded only as an architectural term (the base that supports the weight of
a pillar).  There was also the odd noun "inguen" that is given as describing
the "space between the hips in the front of the body", and also the loins and
the privates and also some diseases.

There are of course many different symptoms that we might now recognize in
the "pressing down" reflected in "incubus" -- e.g., the sleep apnea mentioned
by Stanley Friesen earlier.  Even the throttling and trampling has been
associated with strokes, convulsions, etc., and falls within that general
area of a weight or a force applied "onto" one's body.

The Latin term is in that way a pretty literal description.  "Incubare"
described the action of being pushed or forced or beat down quite literally,
before it was ever applied to nightmares, post-Classically.

The fact that the nightmare is associated with the female seems to be more of
a matter of who sent it -- like the Finnish witch -- then of the necessary
sex of the spirit itself.  It doesn't seem to be female in Latin or Greek.
In northern european folklore, you can discover the true identity of the mare
itself by saying its name -- and in the stories it is sometimes a secretly
malicious neighbor who is as likely male as female.

The later succubus I suspect is an entirely different kind of dream -- a
nightmare only in the sense of prompting unwanted sensations.   The incubus,
in its earliest appearances, doesn't appear to be in its essence sexual or
pleasurable.  Especially when it stomped on your head.

Regards,
Steve Long