boo hag

plural boo hags · alternative booga hag · alternative boo-hag · alternative boohag

1. Gullah folkloreA malevolent supernatural being thought to sit on sleeping victims to drain their life force.

   Be sure to mind Mama, now. 'Cause if you let somebody in, you never know. It just might be Pruella the Boo Hag.

   2005, Pat McKissack, Onawumi Jean Moss, Precious and the Boo Hag, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   HAMILTON’S HILL, 0.4 m., a little elevation, was the starting point for the races, and is known for a wide variety of ghosts including such fearsome creatures as a 10-foot cat that explodes before the beholder’s eyes, plat-eyes in the guise of three-legged hogs and two-headed cows, boo-daddies, boo-hags, and drolls.

   1938, The Ocean Highway: New Brunswick, New Jersey to Jacksonville, Florida, page 204

   Witches are sometimes called boo-hags instead of just hags. One authority on witchcraft says that the boo-hag is more powerful than the ordinary hag, but all sea island Negroes do not concur in this opinion. Hags are hags, they say, no matter what fancy name you may give them.

   1941, South Carolina Folk Tales: Stories of Animals and Supernatural Beings, page 47

   To the typical Negro of the Carolina coast, the night was made fearsome by hordes of spirit beings—the plat-eye, the boo-daddy and boo-hag, the drolls. […] Boo-daddies and boo-hags, were disembodied spirits, released for dread purposes, while drolls were the ghosts of children who had died under mysterious circumstances.

   1949, Chalmers S. Murray, This Our Land: The Story of the Agricultural Society of South Carolina, page 233

   And once she had hold of her spirit, boo hag could slip off her skin and fly all over the place, too. Ride you in just the shape of her while her skin hang there behind the door! 'Tis true!

   1995, Virginia Hamilton, Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales, →ISBN, page 54

   Synonyms: night hag