Cheese Gives You Night Mare

Cheese Gives You Nightmares: Old Hags and Heartburn
Author(s): Caroline Oates

Source: Folklore, Vol. 114, No. 2 (Aug., 2003), pp. 205-225
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Folklore114 (2003):205-225
RESEARCHARTICLE:FOCUSON "THENIGHTMARE"
Cheese Gives you Nightmares: Old Hags and

Heartburn
CarolineOates
Abstract
Stories of witches transforming men into beasts of burden told by Homer,
Apuleius, and St Augustine follow a narrativeschema also found in legends of
people turned into horses by witches with magic bridles.The stories figuratively
convey symptoms of the nightmare,known as the "Mare"or "OldHag."Cheese
features in several of them. Although these narrativesseem a far cry from the
commonplace that cheese is indigestible and causes nightmares, indigestion
and the Mare are inextricablyentwined. This essay explores the relationships
between them. [1]
Aperitif: "Breadand Cheese is Very Well, but Cheese and Cheese is No Sense"
A group of medieval and early modern stories about men transformed by
witches was described by Gareth Roberts as having a "Circeanconfiguration"
because they share a schema and several motifs with Homer's story of the
encounter between Ulysses' companions and Circe (Homer 1979, 159-67 (X);
Roberts 1996, 192-4). They tell of youths in foreign territory lodging with
witches who offer them food, then transformthem into dumb beasts of burden,
and exploit them. In its fullest expositions, an older, wiser companion arrives,
accepts what the witch offers, but then overpowers her and forces her to restore
the younger victim.
Behind the imagery are some of the features of the "Mare"or "Old Hag" type
of nightmare, characterisedby terror,an impression of being awake but power-
less to move or speak, and sensations of weight on the chest. Popular tradition
represented such experiences as assaults by witches sitting on sleepers' bellies,
inflicting terrifying dreams, and leaving their victims exhausted and haggard
("hag-ridden")in the morning (Hufford 1982, 1-9, 54-5 and 245-6). Reginald
Scot in 1584 reported a priest's experience of the Mare:
There cometh unto mee, almost everie night, a certeinewoman, unknowne to me, and lieth
so heavie upon my brest, that I cannot fetch my breath, neither have anie power to crie,
neither doo my hands serve me to shoove hir awaie, nor my feete to go from hir (Scot 1886,
66 [IV.9]).
In some versions, transformationhappens during a dream or state of trance.

Most victims are turned into horses or asses and burdened with packs or ridden
by the witch, conveying the Mare's weighty pressure on the sleeper. Just as
sufferers of the Mare experience sleep paralysis and cannot cry out, people
ISSN 0015-587Xprint;1469-8315online/03/020205-21;RoutledgeJournals;Taylor& FrancisLtd
© 2003 The FolkloreSociety
DOI:10.1080/0015587032000104220

206 CarolineOates
transformed by witches are powerless to prevent their transformation and are

unable to talk.
Cheese appears in the earliest versions: in Apuleius' GoldenAss it signifies
women as sexual partners,much as the term "crumpet"is now used in Britain
(Apuleius 1977, I: 4-19). However, Apuleius worked the metaphor into the
narrativeso subtly that his readers are unlikely to notice its significance unless
they already know what it means. St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (AD345-430),
did not; but Shakespearedid and exploited it in TheMerryWivesof Windsor(First
Quarto edn, 1602) as we shall see below (pp. 214-16). The cheese-woman
metaphor was familiar in Europe. Monks in medieval Germany were called
"cheese-hunters"(Grimm and Grimm 1854-1954, sub Kiisejiger).According to a
Spanish proverb, "Cheesewithout a rind is like a maiden without shame" (Lean
1902-4, 1:502). In Britain,"cheese and cheese" referredto two women kissing or
on horseback together. As one man explained: "Breadand cheese is very well,
but cheese and cheese is no sense" (Wright 1898-1905, 1:576). Men were bread
and women were cheese according to their respective areas of agricultural
activity, men in the grain fields and women in the dairy. The metaphor is still
current: men's magazines feature photographs of "cheesecakes."Anglo-Irish
men might call a good-looking woman "a nice piece of cheese" or "a tasty piece
of Cheddar";a girl who has had many boyfriends is a "blue cheese" and one in
search of a husband is a "mousetrap"(pers. comm. FionnualaCarson Williams,
Gerard Hennessey, and RichardWalsh).
Cheese signified women, the good wife and the bad, the maternallyprotective
as well as the appetisingly dangerous and oppressive. Homely cheese warded
off harm to people in vulnerable situations:a travellerin the Scottish Highlands
would find his way out of a thick mist by looking through the hole in a piece
of rind from the Christmas cheese, Caise Calluinn (Campbell 1902, 232). The
dangers of cheese were mainly to men and mice. Foreign cheese entraps unwary
travellersin St Augustine's stories, while old cheese, which was dry and hard to
swallow, served as a metaphor for a bossy wife in The Old Cheese,a broadside
poem of 1725. The associationof cheese with womanhood sheds light on various
customs, including the cheese ladle that symbolised a domineering wife in
"skimmington rides" and the "groaning cheese" provided at a childbirth (Un-
derdown 1985, 99-103; Opie and Tatem 1989, 182-3). It also illuminates the
"bread and cheese ordeal" to determine guilt or innocence discussed later. For
better or for worse, cheese decided destinies, revealing the innocence of those
who swallowed it, but choking and silencing the guilty, just as the nightmare
choked and silenced her victims.
Cheese signified women and, by extension, it signified sex. An Irish chieftain
nicknamed Cheese-GuzzlerO'Ruaircdied of a "surfeitof sex" in 1204;his fatal
partner was a real woman, but the episode bears overtones of the night witch
(Annalsof LochCd1871, 1:232-3). Explicitly sexual terms applied to cheese: one
type was called spermyse.Its sexual connotations gave rise to related compari-
sons, such as the cheese-making analogy of conception and the metaphor of
worms in cheese for the creation of the world, or the destructive effects of
concupiscence (Ginzburg 1976, 67-9; Ott 1979, 699-711). In Ben Jonson's The
Alchemistfrom 1610, the procurer of clients describes an apothecary seeking
magical help to win the favours of his neighbour, a young widow:

CheeseGivesyou Nightmares 207
A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese, and has the worms. That was the cause indeed
why he came now. He dealt with me in private to get a medicine for 'em (Jonson1998, 259
[Act 2 scene 6, lines 81-4]; an apothecaryis the last to need advice on anthelmintics).
This meaning of cheese corresponds with the marked, sometimes explicit,
sexuality often present both in the Circean narratives and in medieval interpre-
tations of the Mare as assaults by lascivious incubi. Hildegard of Bingen
(AD 1098-1179) saw something sexual in the nightmare. She attributed it to
desiccation of the blood and demonic exploitation of the trace of sin left in
people from the sexual act that led to their conception or "coagulation"-a
cheese-making metaphor (Hildegard of Bingen 1903, 142; Petrina 1993-4, 396).
Referencesto cheese in night witch stories raise the question of whether they
relate to the commonplace that cheese causes nightmares. Initial investigations
suggested otherwise. None of the people to whom I spoke and who knew both
that cheese signifies women and that it causes nightmares connected the two
ideas. The commonplace that cheese gives you nightmares is interpretedration-
ally as a naturaleffect, usually of indigestion, and is confirmedby some people's
experience of cheese-induced dreams that bear little resemblance to the Mare.
Moreover, although familiar to most British people, it is virtually unknown
elsewhere in Europe. It is seldom documented, thereforedifficult to date, but is
traceableto the seventeenth century and is probablymuch older. After all, some
people experience it, cheese was proverbially indigestible, and indigestion was
the commonest natural explanation for nightmares in medical literature from
antiquity onwards. A rational commonplace about bad dreams being caused by
indigestible cheese looks very different from stories of transforming witches
with metaphoriccheese. Yet indigestion has a close relationshipto the Mare:the
intrusive spirits that provoked nightmares could also cause heartburn,and for
the same motives, as I will show later.
The Circean schema occurs in oral and literary narratives in several genres:
tales, realistic novelle,and, especially, legends and personal experience stories
(although often only in partial form). It has affinities with AT 303, "The Twins
or Blood Brothers," but most closely matches ML 3057*, "The Witch-Ridden
Boy," which Katharine Briggs also classed as ML 3055, "The Witch that was
Hurt" (Briggs 1970-1, A1:70; Bl:xxxii). Certain textual lines of descent are clear,
between Homer, Apuleius, and Shakespeare, for example. These, however, are
of less concern here than the association of the stories with the Mare, whose
features are conveyed by imagery and metaphors that are as durable as the
narrative schema itself. Different authors exploit the schema to express a variety
of ideas, but they share a concern with people being overpowered and deprived
of their ability to communicate effectively.
Cheese, Barley Meal, Honey, and Pramnian Wine: Circe's Recipe for Transform-
ation
When Ulysses' companions visit her home on their travels, Circe receives them
hospitably, feeding them "cheese,barley meal, and yellow honey flavoured with
Pramnianwine" (Homer 1979, 161 [X]).But into this she mixes a powerful drug
to make them forget their true home. After they have eaten, Circe strikes them
with her wand, transformingthem into swine, wolves, and other animals, using

208 CarolineOates
them to guard her palace. Although they retain their human minds, they are
unable to speak. Forewarned and armed by Hermes with the antidote to Circe's
drug, Ulysses arrives and accepts her food, but, when she tries to transform him,
draws his sword and terrifies her into submission. She invites him to hier bed,
which he also accepts, but only after forcing her to swear to stop her tricks and
restore his companions to human form.
Like the Mare, Circe overpowers, oppresses, and deprives her victims of
speech. Her power is unmistakably sexual, but it strips unwary men of their
manliness. Cheese does not look out of place on her supper table and later
commentatorssaw more significance in the drugs in the mixture. St Augustine
repeated the pharmacologicalrationalisation,while, for early modern authors,
Circe's meal was merely wholesome fare concealing dangerous substances to
poison the incautious, just as her homely welcome masked her predatory
intentions. Circe's cup was an analogy for witchcraft itself, seductive lies that
beguiled and unmanned men, and inverted the normal order (Roberts 1996,
202-5).
In ancient Rome, however, cheese and honey was marriage food (Etienne
1987, 303). Recognising Circe's meal as a mock wedding feast for an oppressive
enslavement of men, Apuleius drew more attention to the cheese.
More Gorgon than Gorgonzola: Cheese and Nightmares in The Golden Ass
Transformationby witchcraft is the main theme of The GoldenAss, the second-
century novel by Lucius Apuleius of Madaura in North Africa. It recounts the
youthful misadventures of the narrator,also called Lucius, in the Greek region
of Thessaly. Like Ulysses, Lucius travels in foreign territoryand enters the home
of a powerful witch. Forewarned,he is wary of her, but accepts food and sex
from her servant. Unlike Circe's victims, Lucius actively seeks his own trans-
formation, after watching the witch turn into an owl (compare ML 3045,
"Following the Witch").However, the servant makes a mistake and he becomes
an ass instead. While transformed, he is oppressed, exploited, and unable to
speak.
Apuleius took Circe's cheese and put it further forward in the story, before
Lucius arrives at the witch's house. It is clearly a metaphor of women and
has an important relationship with the sexually predatory, vindictive, blood-
draining, heart-stealing night witches described early in the novel (Apuleius
1977, 1:5-19). Three references to cheese surround the episode of the assault of
the witch Meroe. Indigestion also features, and there are recurrentreferencesto
choking and strangulation. Lucius tells Aristomenes, a fellow traveller, of his
recent experience of nearly choking to death on a piece of polentacaseata,dough
fried with cheese (Apuleius 1977, 1:4-5). Aristomenes had had his own cheese-
related misfortune;he had travelled there to buy honey and fresh cheeses, but
every cheese available had been bought by a wholesaler aptly named Lupus
("Wolf,"a common epithet for sexually predatory men). He had then met up
with his old friend Socrates,who was in a sorry state. The witch Meroe, a tavern
landlady, had enslaved him as her lover and robbed him of his meagre earnings
from carryingbaggage like a beast of burden. Aristomenes gave him shelter at
his lodgings, but the witch came with her sister in the night to take her revenge.
Meroe cut Socrates'throat,drained his blood, and pulled out his heart, plugging

the neck wound with a sponge charmed to stay put unless running water
touched it. The witches urinated on Aristomenes as they left, but otherwise
ignored him.
Seeing no sign of a wound on Socrates' neck when he awoke, Aristomenes
assumed he had had a bad dream provoked, as the physicians say, by over-
indulgence the night before. Setting out on their travels again, Socrates said he
had dreamed that his heart was tomrnout through his throat, and now felt weak
and hungry. Aristomenes gave him the cheese he had in his bag, but, as Socrates
ate, the colour drained from his face and Aristomenes could not swallow his
bread for fear of being accused if his friend died. Having eaten almost a whole
cheese, Socrates was now very thirsty and went to drink at a river. As he drank,
his wound reopened, the sponge fell out, and he died. After burying him by the
river, Aristomenes went into voluntary exile, never to return home to his former
wife.
Each man's problem with cheese exactly mirrors his involvement with the
witches. They ignored Aristomenes, who had failed to buy cheese. Socrates was
totally overpowered and drained dry by Meroe, and eating too much cheese
provoked his fatal thirst. Lucius, half-choked by cheese, is later transformed by
the witch's servant, but recovers after immersion in water and divine interven-
tion. Cheese signifies wives as well as witches: Aristomenes had cheese in his
bag, which he gave away to Socrates, just as he had a wife at home whom he
abandoned. The men's evocative names attach the episode to the overall struc-
ture of the novel. Socrates, lacking the virtuous restraint of his famous namesake
(who also had an oppressive wife), dies the evil death, away from home and
without decent burial. Fearful Aristomenes, unlike the daring legendary hero of
that name, ended up in the death-in-life of exile. Lucius, bearer of the author's
name, is temporarily choked by cheese and transformed, but is later restored to
human shape and made a priest of Isis. Cheese-eating is also a metaphor of
experience on the road to redemption, the via media between the extremes of
heroic activity and philosophical contemplation. Excess and avoidance are
equally unfulfilling and redemption is only earned by taking the risk, trying a
bit of the cheese, suffering the nightmare of transformation, and emerging from
the experience as a more mature self.
Cheese in The Golden Ass has a destiny-deciding power related to communi-
cation problems, as the Mare did. It permanently silenced Socrates, and
temporarily choked Lucius, who is later unable to communicate while trans-
formed: when the ass tries to speak all he can do is bray (Apuleius 1977, 7:3).
The cheese's relocation to the beginning of the story invites us to look there for
the Circean oppressor that transforms men and prevents them from communi-
cating;it is adumbratedin the opening address of narratorLucius. He tells of his
arrival in Rome as a foreigner and his struggle to learn Latin, and then draws
a parallel between his linguistic difficulties and the subject of his story, his
transformation.The novel also closes with references to his mastery of Latin:
restored to human form, he becomes an advocate in the lawcourts, pleading
cases in Latin (as Apuleius himself did). The parallelism between opening and
closure reveals the Circe to be the mother tongue of the Romans. It had the
power to choke the foreigner into silence and make him make an ass of himself
until he finally defeated it, mastered the conventions of Latin, and regained his
vocal power.

210 CarolineOates
The Ulysses figure that overpowers the witch is Lucius himself, older and
wiser.
True Stories of Transformation by Bewitched Cheese in The City of God

St Augustine heard two examples of equine transformation by bewitched cheese
in Italy (Augustine, 18:xviii). They belong to the same family as The GoldenAss,
although Augustine heard them told as true. One was a regional tradition that
epitomises Apuleius' story: tavern landladies, skilled in magic, usually give
something in cheese (in caseo solent dare) to travellers to transform them into pack
horses (iumenta) and, after using them to carry things, restore them to human
shape. The other was a personal experience story of transformation during a
dream that more clearly resembles the Mare. One Praestantius said his father ate
some of that drugged cheese in his own home and fell asleep for several days.
He later said he had dreamt he was transformed into a horse and had trans-
ported soldiers' rations, which witnesses confirmed as true. Cheese plays an
important role in both instances, but, despite noting the similarity with The
Golden Ass, Augustine did not notice its metaphoric meaning and rationalised
the dreams of transformation as the effects of drugs or poison (venenum) and
demonic illusions.
Same Story Without the Cheese: Transformation by Eggs or Magic Bridle

In some medieval and early modern versions of the story, eggs take the place of
the magic cheese. A legend of this type was reported in the Malleus Maleficarum
of 1486/7 (Sprenger and Kramer 1486-87 II. 2. 4). A young sailor disembarking
in Cyprus was transformed into an ass after eating eggs given by a young witch,
who kept him as her beast of burden for three years. No significance was
attached to the eggs in the Malleus, nor in Reginald Scot's retelling, although he
perceived the implicit bawdiness of the story (Scot 1886, 75-6 [V. 3]; Roberts
1996, 193). In an Italian novel of 1582, the young hero is turned into an ass by
hard-boiled eggs given by an old witch (Selva 1582). Eggs were a good substitute
for cheese. They were equally associated with female sexuality, with witches
who sail in eggshells, and with the incubus nightmare that afflicts the eater who
forgets to break the shell; they are also hard to digest (Newall 1971, xv; Opie and
Tatem 1989, 135-6). Other equine transformation stories do not specify the
means, but sexuality is often present, even explicit, and sometimes the gender
roles are reversed. Boccaccio told a tale of a man who wanted a priest to turn
his naked wife into a horse, but demurred at the priest completing the trans-
formation by adding the tail (DecameronIX.10). A story in the Life of St Macarius
concerns a rejected suitor avenging himself by hiring a magician to turn a
married woman into a horse; the saint dispels the illusion with some holy water
(Migne 1844-64, LXXIII:1109).[2]
Most frequently, people are transformed into horses and asses by a magic
bridle (Motifs D 535, G 241.2.1.1; Kittredge 1928, 184; Briggs 1970-1, Vol. B part
2, 749-50; Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1991, 184-7). It was a common motif from
the Middle Ages to the modern period and was even more effective than cheese

for controlling, choking, and silencing men transformed into horses. The corre-
spondence with the Circe story is clearest in the legends "The Blacksmith's Wife
of Yarrowfoot" and "The Two Fellows" (ML 3057* or ML 3055: Briggs 1970-1,
Vol. B part 2, 623-5, 715). A robust youth in a master's service starts to sicken.
He confides in an older youth that the master's wife comes to him every night,
bridles him to transform him into a horse, and rides him all night, leaving him
exhausted and drained in the morning. The older youth exchanges sleeping
places with him, and, when the mistress arrives with the bridle, lets her
transform him and ride him to the witches' meeting. Later, slipping out of the
bridle, he puts it over the witch's head, turningher into a horse instead. He rides
her home and ties her up in the stable (or takes the horse for shoeing) before
removing the bridle. Next morning, the master finds his wife in the stable (or in
bed with a horseshoe on her foot). The younger man suffers no more assaults
and recovers after eating butter from the milk of cows fed on churchyardgrass,
"a sovereign remedy for consumption brought on through being witch-ridden."
The story contains the essentials of the Circeanplot. The youths are away from
home, lodging with a powerful woman who necessarily feeds them. Like Circe,
she is an unsuitable partnerwho preys on young men to exploit them, and they
cannot speak out against her-she is the boss's wife. Like Ulysses, the older
youth takes his place, accepts what she offers, but, armed with foreknowledge,
defeats her at her own game and exposes her publicly.
The supernaturalmagic bridle story had a realistic counterpartin the story
"Aristotleand Phyllis" (Sarton1930).Alexander'swife was distractinghim from
state business until Aristotle persuaded him to pay her less attention.To avenge
herself, she seduces the philosopher, who plays along with her request to prove
his affection by letting her saddle, bridle, and ride him (Figure 1). Seeing this,
Alexanderasks Aristotlewhy he submitted to such humiliation.The philosopher
answers by saying, if Alexander's wife can make a fool of a wise old man like
himself, how much more of a fool might she make of a younger, less wise man?
As Ulysses did, but in a very different way, Aristotle helps Alexander to return
to his normal self by outwitting the Circeanwoman with the disorderly power
to turn men into something other than they should be and deprive them of their
manly voice. Phyllis was motivated by vindictiveness; others bridled and
saddled men for profit. A pamphlet of 1595 described how one Judith Philips
(whose name sounds suspiciously like Phyllis) "cozened"a rich man wanting to
meet the Queen of the Fairies. She persuaded him to let her saddle, bridle and
ride him; then, as he waited for the Queen to appear, Judith ran off with his
valuables (Rosen 1969, 215; and see figure on front cover).
The marked sexuality of fabulates and literary narrativeswith a Circean plot
is less prominent in personal experience stories. Equally, David Hufford found
that there was rarely anything sexual about his informants'descriptions of the
experience of the Old Hag or Mare. The nightmare affected women as well as
men, both men and women could send it, and the assailantcould be represented
as either a female or male figure (Hufford 1982, 130-1). This suggests that
the sexual aspect of the narrativeswas largely a trope for the strong desires that
were central to both malefic witchcraft and the Evil Eye. Witches wanted
what they lacked and could not get in normal ways. Those wants might
be sexual, or they could be for food, drink, power, vengeance, profit, or

212 CarolineOates
Figure 1 She keeps her hat on: "Aristotle und Phyllis" by Hans Baldung Grien, 1513. Photograph: The
Warburg Institute, London.

whatever else they wanted; and any intense desire can be described metaphori-
cally as lust. As King James said, witches are motivated by either envy or
vindictiveness: they want what others have, or revenge against those who offend
them (James VI and I 1597, 32-5 [II.2]). Witches transform people into horses for
vengeance or to profit from them by stealing their power; in some tales the witch
profits financially by selling the horse (Kittredge 1928, 184, 502, n.93). Nightmare
witches exacted retribution for violations of norms of behaviour or took the
power they wanted from their victims by riding off with their spirits and
exploiting them as horses (P6cs 1999, 50, 65-6, 79-81 and 93). Likewise, the Evil
Eye steals the vital fluids and productive potential of anything exposed to its
envious gaze, or punitively blasts those who refuse to share (Dundes 1992, 263,
268-70). Characteristically dry, envious, and vindictive witches wanted blood, in
more than one sense. A common theme underlies these different types of malefic
assault: strong wants unsatisfied in the material world strike out for satisfaction
in spirit, taking and consuming the power and profit-making flow of vulnerable
bodies and processes, including fluency of breath and speech, and even, as we
shall see, the digestion of a dinner.
Anne Armstrong's Piece of Cheese: A Remedy for Transformation

Transformation by magic bridle featured in personal experience stories of
witnesses accusing witches in trials both in England and in Hungary (Briggs
1962, 102; Porter 1974, 144-5; P6cs 1999, 79-80, 93). In 1672-3, the deposition of
Anne Armstrong, a young Northumbrian woman, combined the magic bridle
story with traits of the Mare, the Circean schema, and many motifs common to
other versions (Denham 1967, 2:299-314). Among these were: a transaction
involving eggs; bewitchment by ocular fascination; transformation in spirit;
exploitation by being ridden; loss of vocal power; dry witches who drain blood
and steal power; a warning from an old, wise man; and a piece of cheese. In the
latter, however, the cheese is the remedy rather than the cause of transformation.
Anne's ordeal began with her journey to the home of a woman to buy eggs,
but they quarrelled over the price. The woman deprived Anne of the profit of
the transaction and "looked her head" to bewitch her. Later, she came and put
a bridle on Anne while she lay in a trance, transformed her spirit into a horse,
and rode her to the witches' meeting. Forewarned by a wise old man, she
refused their food to prevent them from harming her (like Circe's potion,
otherworldly food makes people forget to go home). She was ridden home and
returned to human shape, but her ability to communicate was impaired and she
could not speak openly about her experience until she ate a piece of cheese. As
the old man predicted, she found it lying by her head when she awoke in a field
on 27 December. The date is of interest. This was the Feast of St John the
Evangelist, who, as supposed author of Revelation,was an ideal patron saint for
a woman with much to reveal, and the first verses of St John'sGospel were used
to protect against witchcraft (Thomas 1971, 187). Here, words were made flesh
again in a piece of cheese that restored Anne's power of speech. It was also
Christmascheese that, like the CaiseCalluinn,helped her find her way out of the
fog of witchcraft.

214 CarolineOates
After eating it, she was able to reveal the witches' names and the malefic acts
they reported to the Devil, which corresponded with real misfortunes suffered
by witnesses and their animals, whose bodies were drained of blood until they
sickened to death. She said she heard one witch tell the Devil that she had "got
power of" George Taylor's foal. George Taylor testified that, when his foal died,
they opened the body and found barely a quart of blood in it. What the witches
wanted from their victims, in Anne's story, was their power and blood. They
were dry, "had no means of obtaining water" at their feasts, and, having less
vital fluid than they wanted, took it from victims who consequently had less
blood than they needed to survive.
Anne Armstrong'spiece of cheese was also a way of appealing to be believed,
marking her innocence of witchcraft. Cheese had long had a destiny-deciding
role in distinguishing guilt from innocence in the bread and cheese ordeal or
"holy morsel" (Motif H 232; Thomas 1971, 218). Only the innocent could
swallow it, while it choked the guilty. As a symbol of the body of Christ,bread's
role makes sense in an ordeal appealing to divine judgement;but there was less
scripturaljustificationfor the use of cheese in that context. Apuleius, however,
shows that cheese had the power to choke and decide men's fates before the full
establishment of Christianity,and there are very early references to the bread
and cheese ordeal to detect a thief (Eckstein 1927-42, 4:1033-4). Anglo-Saxon
law made provision for it and, although it fell from judicial use after 1215, it
lingered in popular custom into the early modern period (Kittredge1928, 238).
In 1618, Jane Bulkeley distributed pieces of cheese to an assembled group in
order to discover a thief (Thomas 1971, 220). In William Rowley's The Witchof
Edmonton(Act 4 scene 1), the witch exclaims: "Let 'em eat cheese and choke" of
her false accusers. The fatal power of ordealic cheese has left a linguistic trace
in the expression "hard cheese" meaning "bad luck," which is exactly what a
dry, old piece of "choke-dog" cheese would be if one's life depended on
swallowing it. Breadand cheese signified men and women; united, they symbol-
ised the family and community that decided fates by binding the innocent to the
place where they belonged and had a voice, while separatingthe guilty outsider
whose words were untrustworthy.Anne Armstrong swallowed it. In so doing,
she demonstrated that her words could be trusted and that she belonged to the
community of the living, not to the witches' alien world of deception and theft.
Choked with a Piece of Toasted Cheese: The Merry Wives of Windsor

William Adlington's 1566 translation of The Golden Ass fell on fertile ground:
Shakespeare liberally exploited the Circean schema and many motifs from
Apuleius in The Merry Wives of Windsor.There are references to transformations,
hag-riding, a nocturnal attack of retributive fairies, and an old witch. Here, too,
we find communicationproblems. As modern editors have emphasised, it is a
play about the conventions of English (Shakespeare,ed. Melchiori 2000, 3-9).
Language is transformed and distorted in manifold ways, ranging from Sir
Hugh Evans' Welsh pronunciation,CorporalNym's cliches, a Latin lesson, and
countless comments on improper usage, metaphors, and other linguistic meta-
morphoses. It is also a comedy about cheese. This is fitting for a play set among
rustic people, with a Welshman in a central role--cheese was classed as peasant

food, and Welshmen were stereotyped as excessively fond of it, especially

toasted (Zall 1977, 132; Camporesi 1994, 37-63). The Circean schema, however,
and the union between the linguistic and cheese themes at the end, suggest that
Parson Hugh Evans is present because of the cheese rather than the reverse.
As in The GoldenAss, cheese is meaningful both literally in the text and
metaphorically in relation to the two main plots: the courtship of Anne Page,
and Falstaff'spunishment for lusting after two married women. Rennet derives
from "runneth"and no one runs more than Mistress Quickly does. She is the
active agent who ensures that Anne marriesMasterFenton, her favourite, rather
than her parents' preferences,Dr Caius and Master Slender,whose unsuitability
is emphasised by their being likened to cheese. Slender has a "whay-coloured
beard"and is insulted by being called a "Banburycheese," which was very thin
(Quarto edn, Act 1 scene 4, line 5; Act 1 scene 1, line 120). Although Doctor
Caius is French,his name rhymes with "cheese"and its orthographyis close to
both the Welsh and the Irish for cheese, cawsand caiserespectively. Slender and
Caius, two cheeses, obviously cannot marryAnne because "cheese and cheese is
no sense." The point is reinforced at the end, when each is tricked to the altar
with a disguised boy instead of Anne. Bread and bread ....
Cheese crops up in Falstaff's attempts to seduce Mrs Page and Mrs Ford.
CorporalNym, dismissed by Falstafffor refusing to carry the love letter to Mrs
Page, vindictively informs Mr Page of Falstaff's intentions: "... Falstaff loves
your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese. Adieu" (Act 2
scene 1, line 123). This does not simply mean displeasure at the prospect of
reduced rations-mere bread and cheese--after his dismissal. It also refers to the
reason for Nym's dismissal, his dislike of the idea of helping Falstaffto make the
ideal human sandwich with Mrs Page.
The Circeanschema is radicallyaltered.Falstaffis certainlya newcomer to the
area, and dines at the homes of the Pages and the Fords. However, he merely
imagines that the wives give him encouraging looks, and it is he, not they, who
is the sexual predatorand oppressor. The wives are outraged by his love letters,
but cannot publicly challenge him because Mr Ford is insanely jealous, so they
resort to action ratherthan words to defeat him. Yet they play Circe's part, too,
by luring Falstaffwith feigned offers of love to exploit him for their amusement
and punish him by making an ass of him. Having invited him to Mrs Ford's
house, they pretend that Mr Ford is returning, necessitating Falstaff's conceal-
ment in the dirty linen basket. He is thrown in the river, his first punishment for
trying to get into the wives' underskirts. Immersion in water restored Lucius;
Falstaff'sardour is not dampened. His second ordeal is to be turned into an old
hag, disguised in the clothes of an old aunt reputed to be a witch in order to
escape from Mr Ford again. The disguise as a witch is appropriate,since Falstaff
had assumed Circe's role; but he is Circe's victim too, deprived of his manly
appearance and not daring to speak. For his final ordeal, the wives arrange to
meet him at midnight in WindsorGreatPark,disguised as Herne the Hunter.He
waits, like Lucius, soon to be transformedinto something other than expected,
but purely figuratively in Falstaff'scase. Instead of the wives, Evans dressed as
a satyr and the children disguised as fairies come to him, pinching him to punish
his lustful mind. Falstaff, aware of Evans' Welsh accent, calls out "Heavens
defend me from that Welsh fairy lest he transformme to a piece of cheese"-into

216 CarolineOates
both what stage Welshmen love best, and a woman, the nadir of Circean
oppression (Act 5 scene 5, lines 81-2).
Once the joke is revealed, Falstaff observes that he is "made an ass," un-
manned and foolish for being led, by his guilty conscience, to believe they were
real fairies (Act 5 scene 5, line 124). Mr Ford had also made an ass of himself by
his groundless jealousy of his wife, transforming himself into Mr Brook to try to
catch her out. He is restored to normality by the wives' trick to expose Falstaff
and demonstrate their virtue. Here, the language theme joins the cheese theme.
Ford had previously said that he would rather trust Parson Hugh with his
cheese than his wife with herself (Act 2 scene 2, line 287). Now he tells the
Welshman: "I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in
good English" (Act 5 scene 5, lines 132-3). The conventions of marriage are
secure because Evans, the lover of real cheese, is manifestly foreign to proper
English pronunciation, and Falstaff, the chaser of metaphoric cheese, is revealed
as a foreigner to the norms of proper conduct. It is the very conventional wives
who, like ordealic cheese, decide who is in and who is out, who has a voice and
who has no power to speak.
Falstaff also draws both themes together, uniting them with hag-riding,
desiccation, madness, and the bread and cheese ordeal. Teased to exasperation,
he cries:
Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross
o'erreachingas this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frieze?
'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese! (Act 5 scene 5, lines 134-8).
This toasted ordealic cheese is aimed at Evans, who retorts:"Seese is not good
to give putter, and your pelly is all putter" (Act 5 scene 5, lines 139-40). He is
alluding to another dairy proverb: "The more butter, the worse cheese"-milk
skimmed for butter-making produces inferior cheese, and cheese made with
whole milk reduces the cream availablefor butter-making(Lean1902-04, 1:435).
Nor is it good to offer women to butter-bellied Falstaff, too ugly and degenerate
to be desirable. Cheese and language combine once more, as Falstaffparries the
jibe with a stab at the Welshman's linguistic offence:
"Seese" and "putter"?Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of
English?This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm (Act 5
scene 5, lines 141-4).
The mention of lust brings the toasted cheese to choke him-not real toasted
cheese but what it represented,the wives and Evans in person, hot as toast with
indignation. They silence him by metaphorically transforming him into still
lower orders of being-a "hodge pudding," a "bag of flax," given to unruly
behaviour, blasphemy, and other misuses of language. Falstaffis finally lost for
words: "I am dejected, I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel .... Use me as
you will" (Act 5 scene 5, lines 160-2). He soon retrieves his voice and old buck
self, however, when the tables are turned on his tormentors,who, like the witch
transformedby her own bridle, are turned into asses themselves. Anne Page has
secretly marriedMr Fenton, averting the conventionalbut potentially oppressive
marriage her parents were trying to arrange.

Toasted Cheese: Rabbits and Rarebits

Falstaff called for toasted cheese to choke him: cooking intensified the properties
of cheese. It was extra tasty-"tosted cheese hath no master" went the proverb
(Ray 1678, 82). It was even more alluringly dangerous as metaphor: toasted
cheese was like an adorned woman in the Devil's trap for men, said Odo of
Cheriton (d. 1247), warning of the perils of adultery:
Cheese is toasted and placed in a trap;when the rat smells it, it enters the trap, seizes the
cheese, and is caught by the trap. So it is with all sin. Cheese is toasted when a woman is
dressed up and adorned so that she entices and catches the foolish rats: take a woman in
adultery and the Devil will catch you (Hervieux 1896, 221, no. 49a). [3]
Toasted cheese was extra effective as therapy:FrancisGrose alleged that Welsh
midwives would apply it to the "januavitae"to speed up a slow delivery by
enticing the baby out (Grose 1785, sub Welch Rabbit). [4] Toasted cheese was
even more indigestible and apt to cause nightmares (Smith 1845, 3:45;see Figure
2). The English called it "Welsh rabbit" in the early eighteenth century, and
"rarebit"only became common after 1785 (Grose 1785, sub Rabbit). It has
been said that "rarebit"was coined by people failing to see the joke of the
mock-heroic "rabbit"for a humble cheese toastie (Palmer 1882, 431). However,
"rarebit"may have become the preferred term because of prudishness about
naming rabbits at all, since they, too, were closely associated with female
sexuality. It is no coincidence that a cheese dish acquired this name. Before the
eighteenth century, the word "rabbit"had designated only the young of the
cony (Latin cuniculus, from cuniculum, meaning "hole" or "burrow"), but
replaced the latter term when its phonetic proximity to "cunny" became too
much for English politeness. Cony meat, moreover, shared cheese's reputation
for causing indigestion and nightmares. As Robert Burton said in 1621, "conies
are of the nature of hares" and hare's meat was "hard of digestion; it breeds
incubus, often eaten, and causeth fearful dreams" (Burton 1923, 1:250 [I.2.2.1];
2:116 [II.2.6.1]).
Contrasting Theories of Nightmares:Indigestion and the Mare

The Britishcommonplace that cheese causes nightmares tends to be understood
as the result of indigestion, and thus it continues the ancient medical theory,
dubbed the "Heavy Supper Theory," that nightmares are caused by indigestion.
This has been the favourite natural explanation of the oppressive nightmare
since Galen's time (Paul of /Egina 1844, 1:388-9; Gregory I 1924, 309 [IV. 50];
Galenus 1965, XVII. 2:628, 747; Davies 1996-7, 47-8). According to Reginald
Scot, the Mare was caused by a heavy humour:
... ingendred of a thicke vapor proceeding from the cruditie and rawnesse in the stomach:
which ascending up into the head oppresseth the braine, in so much as manie are much
infeebled therebie as being nightlie haunted therewith (Scot 1886, 68 [IV. 11]).
Cheese had long been proverbially indigestible: Caseus est nequam, quia digerit
omniasequam("Cheeseit is a Peevish Elfe, It digests all things but itself") (Smith
1935, sub Cheese; Tilley 1950, C 299; Etienne 1987, 299). Furthermore, although
other Europeans tend not to register its effects, many British people really do

218 Caroline Oates
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Figure 2 A cartoon, unintentionally apt to this essay's overpowering woman theme, from the series
illustrating the dangers of toasted cheese by "Silas" [Winsor McCay]. From: Dreamsof theRarebitFiend,
1905; repr. New York: Dover Publications, 1973, p. 45. By permission of the publisher.

experience nightmares, and indigestion, after cheese: around one in six people
confirmed this in an informal poll. The presence of a cheese-specific version of
the "Heavy Supper Theory" in Britain is thus less mysterious than its virtual
absence elsewhere in Europe (largely attributable to different cultural attitudes
to cheese).
Superficially, bad dreams provoked by indigestible cheese seem to have little
in common with assaults by night witches associated with metaphoric cheese.
Given the contrast, moreover, between the "Heavy Supper Theory" and the
spirit assault interpretationof nightmares, it would be easy to assume that the
modern commonplace emerged out of an educated tradition opposed to folk
traditions about the Mare. However, the contrastinginterpretationsdo not mark
a simple division between learned rationalism and folk superstition, and indi-
gestion is neither as straightforwardnor as entirely natural as it looks, but is
inextricablyrelated to the Mare.Beforethe eighteenth century, education was no
bar to admitting that spirits caused nightmares: demons easily did this. Con-
versely, scholarshipwas not essential for the figurative use of the Mare as a way
of expressing a particular,extraordinary,nocturnalexperience that might never-
theless have natural causes. That indigestion provoked nightmares was a long-
standing commonplace, familiar to all, including those who accepted that
intrusive spirits could cause the Mare. For those who rejected the spirit assault
theory, all nightmares had natural causes; while for those who accepted it, both
natural and unnaturalinterpretationswere available,applicableaccordingto the
features of the experience.People seeking to persuade others that spirits inflicted
their nightmareswould have had to argue against competing naturalinterpreta-
tions, such as indigestion.
Indigestion was not, in fact, the most relevant natural explanation for the
Mare. As medieval authors knew, it mainly affects people who sleep on their
backs, and modern studies indicate that sleep apnoea is a contributoryfactor
(Williamof Auvergne 1674, 1:1069, C. col. 1; Burton 1923, 1:291 [I. 2. 3. 2]; Jones
1949, 16, 20-2, 27-8, 50-1; Hufford 1982, 98, 210). Supine position is also evident
in the traditional representation of the Mare sitting on the sleeper's chest or
belly. Defences against her include strapping a board of nails to one's chest and,
necessarily, not sleeping on one's back (Davies 1996-7, 47). Nevertheless, it was
commonly attributed to indigestion, and there was another, more significant,
relationship between them: heartburnand other symptoms of cardialgia could
be caused, like the Mare, by intrusive spirits, and usually for the same motives
of envy and vindictiveness.
Old English alf-sogoda,m., referred to a disease inflicted mainly by dzin-elfen
(Lat. castalides),who were thought to possess the victim: prayers appointed for
the cure of the disease closely resemble formulas used in cases of demonic
possession (Bosworth 1964, 15a). It has been interpretedas hiccups or heartburn
inflicted by elves (Bonser 1926, 358). The Evil Eye caused people to choke on
their food, gave them hiccups, or put them off eating (Dundes 1992, 258). In
1602, when Elizabeth Jackson looked longingly at the bread Mary Glover was
eating, the bread suddenly dropped out of her mouth and she fell off her stool
(Thomas 1971, 558). Witches could inflict indigestion deliberately.Alice Skilling
in Cambridgeshire, in 1608, wished it on the minister and churchwardens of
Mepal, saying she hoped that "the food and drink they ate may go up and down

220 CarolineOates
their bellies as men go to harrow" (Thomas 1971, 508). "Heart-ache" or

"hartcake" applied to indigestion and complaints with similar symptoms that
could have either natural or unnatural causes (Black 1903, 102; Thomas 1971,
184). Night witches in north-east England provoked such afflictions. Elisabeth
Simpson was accused in 1660 of assailing Frances Mason who was sick and
bedridden, "where she lay miserably tormented, crying out that the said
Elisabeth did pinch her heart and pull her in pieces" (Balfour 1904, 22). In 1663,
Jane Milburne testified that Dorothy Stranger tormented her "soe intollerably
that she could not rest all the night and was like to teare her very heart in peeces
and this morneing left her" (Balfour 1904, 26). Counter-witchcraft returned
heartburn to the assailant. In 1661, Robert Phillip, a Newcastle labourer, was
"sore pained at his heart and lying awake one night ... the doores being shutt."
Mary Johnson appeared and told him to wipe from his brow the ointment he
had used to alleviate his headache because she was "burnt to the heart" by it
(Balfour 1904, 22-3).
The relationship between spirit assault and indigestion is even clearer in
Scandinavian traditions relating to the hug (ON hugr), which denoted thought,
desire, will, or emotion. It was an aspect of the self that was capable of causing
effects on other bodies (Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1991, 41-4). In some respects,
the hug overlaps with the Mare. In others, it corresponds with maleficiumand
with widespread traditions about physiological disruptions attributed to other
people's thoughts, desires, or envy. Hug is semantically related to Anglo-Saxon
hyge, a concept of active mind located near the heart, associated with the
emotions. As RichardNorth remarks:
In the North-Sea Germanic languages of the early Middle Ages, there was an oddly
widespread use of hyge-wordsas instrumentsrather than features of personality [...] hyge
emerges as an isolated adjunctof the self (North 1991, 85).
In northernEnglish dialect, the word hig denoted "a fit of passion, a huff;"higged
meant "angered, offended," higly "passionate";to take the hig was "to take
offence." A hig was also "a temporary hurricane"(Wright 1898-1905, 3:156-7;
this is Old Norse higr,which in East Anglia has the evocative name of "Roger's
Blast" (pers. comm. JenniferChandler)).
The hug was responsible for the sudden noises in the ears, tingles, and itches
attributedto other people's thoughts throughout Europe (Pliny 1855-7, XXVIII:
5; Ryan 1999, 159). The term hug meant "itch"in Somerset, and yuckmeant the
same in Lincolnshire (Grose 1787; Wright 1898-1905, 3:268). As Bente Alver
records, Norwegians would clap a hand on the itching part and say: "I have
your hug now." A very strong hug could damage the objects of its owner's
desire, causing loved ones to pine away, cattle to sicken, or buckets of milk to
leak. Anyone could do this, but nice people would try to prevent themselves
from thinking harmful thoughts, for fear their hug might wander and damage
whatever they were thinking about. The strongest form was a rehug,a "riding
hug," which assailed people in the night as a nightmare. The hug could act
invisibly, or appear visibly, whether in that person's likeness, as an animal, a
light, or a thick mist (Alver 1989, 112-14). (A thick mist was a "hag"in northern
England: Wright 1898-1905, 3:12).
Many effects of the hug relate to eating, matching effects of the Evil Eye. An

envious or grudging person's hugsing put others off eating or made food stick in
their throats. When someone choked while eating, another might say: "Well, I
don't begrudge you your food." The expression hugbit, "hug-bite," referred to
belching, heartburn, and other symptoms of cardialgia, which were attributed to
a "biting spirit" belonging to someone else, akin to the "riding hug" (Alver 1989,
112-13). Charms to counteract the "three biters"-the envious eye, the cursing
tongue, and ill will from the heart-were in use in early modern England
(Thomas 1971, 186-7). Spells to send them were mentioned in medieval Scandi-
navian sources (Boyer 1986, 37). The spirits of the needy, greedy, and vindictive
could travel and bite into other people, obstruct swallowing, impede digestion,
and steal the profit of food. Since both nightmares and heartburn could be
attributedto spirit assault, whether by the hug, the Evil Eye, or maleficium,it is
not surprising that rational explanations of the cause of the Mare focused on
indigestion rather than the more relevant supine position in sleep.
The Mare and indigestion do not fall neatly into separatecategories.Empirical
experience of either is entangled with metaphor, and with both natural and
supernaturalcausal theories, in stories of assaults by night-riding witches. Even
with natural causes, indigestion was an afflictionof the hag in the north, where
"hag" also meant "belly" (Wright 1898-1905, 3:12, sub Hag).
Digestion
Cheese gives you nightmares.Currently,it is true only literally and naturally:it
"lays on your chest," as one man said, meaning indigestion, but his metaphor
was apt. Formerly,it was true both literally and figuratively,because cheese was
proverbially indigestible and a metaphor of a female power that oppressed as a
nightmare. The dry old hag and the dry old piece of cheese were symmetrical,
one atop the sleeper's belly and the other inside it, both sex-related, inflicting
bad dreams, stifling, and stealing the profit of rest. The difficulty of detaching
the night witch from cheese-induced dreams in the early modem period is
illustrated by Robert Hooke's diary entry for 23 March 1674: "Slept ill after
cheese; Dremt of viragoes and other strange phenomena" (Hooke 1935, 92). He
would have attributed this to natural causes but his dream of powerful female
figures recalls the cheese-wielding witches of The City of God (which he had in
his library: Rostenburg 1989, 168).
Several points of interest emerge from this exploration.
* Indigestion is inseparablefrom the Mare traditions,although it is not the most
appropriatenatural cause.
* The association of cheese with nightmares has persisted in Britain since at
least the seventeenth century because experience confirms it and people can
explain it rationally. But it is no longer understood as Apuleius presented it.
* The Circean schema shaped a wide range of very different narratives,both
literary and oral, over two millennia.
* Some level of meaning also remained stable, notably features of the Mare,
conveyed by imagery and metaphors that also endured for long periods.
* The cheese-woman metaphorcontinues even now; Apuleius used it to convey
a sexuality that recurs in the Circean narratives but is rendered by other
imagery in later versions.

222 Caroline Oates
* Cheese's metaphoric meaning, however, and the Mare's traits in these stories
are liable to escape attention unless people already know them, just as the
effects of cheese on sleep tend to be noticed more where the commonplace is
known.
* Shakespeareknew the cheese-woman metaphor, and consequently spotted it
in Apuleius; St Augustine apparently did not.
* St Augustine nevertheless illustrates how a storyteller unaware of a
metaphoricmeaning can easily transmit it in a story that others, knowing the
metaphor, would understand differently.
As David Hufford showed, people who do not know the Old Hag/Mare
traditionsoften find it difficult to articulatethe experience:the traditions offered
a means of doing so (Hufford 1982, 48, 52-3). Telling the story of the Mare was
a way of defeating her stifling silence. Different authors transformed and
exploited the figure of the transforming,exploitative night witch for different
ends: some to express the experience of oppression by witches, domineering
wives, nightmares, and even indigestion that might have either natural or
unnatural causes; others, like Apuleius and Shakespeare, used it to talk about
communication itself.
Notes
[1] For invaluable comments and references,I am indebted to Dr Willem de Bldcourt,Dr Davide
Brancaleone,Prof. CharlesBurnett,Mrs JenniferChandler,Prof. Paul Guichonnet,Mr Gerard
Hennessey, Mme Alice Joisten,Prof. PatriciaLysaght,Prof. Eva P6cs, Dr Jean-BrunoRenard,
Dr JonathanRoper,Prof. W.F. Ryan, Ms Ursula Sdunnus, Dr JacquelineSimpson, Ms Magda
Stirling,Mr RichardWalsh, and Dr FionnualaCarson Williams.
[2] Kittredge(1928,184, 502, notes 93-7) refersto many other versions. Cheese does not persist in
modern hag-riding legends-although a New Hampshire legend told of a piece of cheese
thrown in the fire to cure a bewitchmentby burning the witch elsewhere (Baughman1966, G
275.13).
[3] My translation. In the Middle Ages, the Devil's mousetraps were women (Whiting and
Whiting 1968, 417, 661); later, "mouse"was slang for a penis (Farmer1891, sub Mouse).
[4] Surely a puerperalvariant of the old jest about St Peter clearing the Welsh out of Heaven by
standing outside the gate calling "Cause Babe! [cawspobi]That is as moch to say 'Rosty'd
cheese'" (Zall 1977, 132).
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Biographical Note
CarolineOatesis InformationOfficer/Librarian
of TheFolkloreSociety,as well as VisitingTutorin the
Departmentof Historicaland CulturalStudies,GoldsmithsCollege,Universityof London,and at The
WarburgInstitute,whereshe receiveda PhD in 1993for a thesison earlymoderntrialsof werewolves.


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Cheese Gives You Nightmares: Old Hags and Heartburn

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