The name is also used to describe pondweed or duckweed, which can form a continuous mat over the surface of a small body of water, making it misleading and potentially treacherous, especially to unwary children.
She is also described as lurking in the upper branches of trees at night, although this may be a folklorist's confusion with the northern English Jinny-hewlet, a folk name for an owl.
[3] She is likely to have been an invention to frighten children from dangerous waters, similar in nature to the Slavic Rusalka, the Kappa in Japanese mythology, or Australia's Bunyip.
[7] She appears in Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, attacking the main character, Tiffany Aching, and her brother, Wentworth, near a shallow stream.
Jenny Greenteeth appears in a number of Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition) adventure modules, including: DDEX01-08 "Tales Trees Tell" (2014),[8] DDAL04-01 "Suits of the Mist" (2016),[9] DDAL04-06 "The Ghost" (2016),[10] and DDAL04-14 "The Dark Lord" (2016).
Manchester-based drag queen Anna Phylactic wore a look inspired by Jenny Greenteeth on episode 1 of The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, Season 5.
Mancunian author Georgiea Howarth, portrays her as a cursed toothfairy, whose fate it is to punish the local population, turning the teeth of anyone who doesn't clean them, green in the night.