Hag

[7][8] As a stock character in fairy or folk tale, the hag shares characteristics with the crone, and the two words are sometimes used as if interchangeable.

This variety of hag is essentially identical to the Old English mæra—a being with roots in ancient Germanic superstition, and closely related to the Scandinavian mara.

[13][14][15] Parents who wanted to keep their children away from the river's edge told them that if they got too close to the water, she would pull them in with her long arms, drown them, and sometimes eat them.

The most common pattern is that the hag represents the barren land, whom the hero of the tale must approach without fear, and come to love on her own terms.

When the hero displays this courage, love, and acceptance of her hideous side, the sovereignty hag then reveals that she is also a young and beautiful goddess.

[citation needed] In mediaeval and later literature, the term hag, and its relatives in European languages, came to stand for an unattractive, older woman.

Building on the mediaeval tradition of such women as portrayed in comic and burlesque literature, specifically in the Italian Renaissance, the hag represented the opposite of the lovely lady familiar from the poetry of Petrarch.