River Folklore ~ Hags of the River
“I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still.”
― Aidan Chambers, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn
“Once, men and women were able to turn themselves into eagles and fly immense distances. They communed with rivers and mountains and received wisdom from them. They felt the turning of the stars inside their own minds.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
The gate closes behind us, shutting us off from the outside world. Gone is the noise of the traffic that floats from the town centre, a few minutes walk along the river bank (or over the bridge and along the road, though why you’d choose that route over the riverside one is anyone's guess but alas, I digress). No longer visible are the youths jumping off the bridge into the cold waters below, the temperature is still high even now as the afternoon gives way to evening and the feeling of being invincible still courses within. Inside this place, this bit of land that is a local anglers’ paradise, it feels pure magic.
Willows line the bank and thick undergrowth of hogweed, burdock, thistle and woody nightshade provide cover for birds and small mammals. Unseen, waterbirds cry out, their shrill calls echoing over the water. The sunlight, still warm and thick like honey straight from the hive, glints off the fast flowing water and dapples through the boughs of the trees.
Perfection.
The island, for that is what this enclosed scrap of land is, feels like pure magic. The river, always beautiful and ever bringing back memories of my youth, adds something else, something extra. It surrounds this bit of land on three sides. An island in the middle of the town it might be, but an island away from the rest of the world is what it feels like.
There is an allure to the river, don’t you think? A beauty tinged with otherness and perhaps even fear, for what lies beneath the dark depths, hidden from sight?
As I began thinking about this piece, I thought what better than a little river folklore, especially as it’s summer and a heat wave here too. And besides, I’ve been spending more time along the river than I normally do, in part doing the parental duty of taxiing the lads along with their fishing equipment to the riverside. I could have gone with animals and plants of the river, and indeed that might still be so, but I couldn’t help but get sidetracked by the many and varied stories of the river hag.
For the most part, such stories gave parents a bogeyman they could use to scare their young away from the dangers of deep water, for like fire, there is something alluring about water. There’s also a part of me, perhaps a more cynical part, that sees these stories as something else; our loss of connection to these wild spaces. Instead of respecting the power of water and the dangers that come with it, it instead becomes something to be feared. Something that is othered. And when something is not respected, when it is othered, it becomes susceptible to abuse. I could wax lyrical about the state of oceans, rivers and waterways, but we already know all of that. And besides, it’d be like preaching to the choir, right?
Instead, I’ll sit beside the bank for a while and utter to you tales of women who lurk beneath the surface, almost forgotten queens of sunken realms; tales of betrayal and sadness. These are the stories of the river hag.
Most well known of such hags is Jenny Greenteeth. Long have children in certain parts of the Midlands, Lancashire and Shropshire been warned off deep and dangerous water with the promise that Jenny Greenteeth would drag them to the bottom and feast on their flesh with those long, sharp green teeth of hers after they have drowned, of course. In different parts, you’ll get different versions of this ugly water witch. In some places she is associated with rivers and ponds and yet in others she is linked to pools of stagnant water. Either way, the fate of those unfortunate children who should ignore the wisdom of their parents is certain, for no one escapes Jenny Greenteeth and a meal of them she shall make! Interestingly and perhaps revealingly so, Jenny Greenteeth is another name for duckweed. Duckweed often covers the surface of deep, stagnant pools of water and the whole surface too, so it's easy for people to fall into the water and also into difficulty, hinting at the malicious and tricky nature of this particular hag.
Similar to Jenny Greenteeth is Peg Powler, however unlike the former, this hag inhabits a particular place. The River Tees snakes its way through the north of England as it makes its way to the sea, and it is this river where Peg Powler makes her home. Like Jenny Greenteeth, this hag too has been used to warn children away from the river, however unlike Jenny, Peg prefers rough choppy water. Locals say that when Peg Powler is agitated and angry, the water foams and froths.
The next hag may sound somewhat familiar and depending where you are, might refer to a class of water spirit or sprite or, as with the others, a singular being, again seen as a monster to frighten children.
A grindylow is a water sprite that is humanoid in form, but again with long claws good for snatching stray children who wander too close to the water’s edge. For fans of the movie Beowulf or indeed old English poetry and myth, the name grindylow, sometimes grundylow may have rung a bell. Within the epic poem and indeed throughout other examples of old English literature, the word Grendel often appears, either as a name or a term or title, foten in reference to water or damp places. In Beowulf, Grendels mother is a serpent-like creature linked to water. In English folklore, Grindylows too are linked to rivers, meres and lakes.
Truth be told, there are many tales about hags who reside in deep bodies of water of all kinds. Sometimes the edges blur and they meld into one another and other times they can be traced back to a particular place, either way, they share some common qualities, malevolence chief among them!
While it is easy to get caught up in the horror of such creatures, their stories, myths and legends, I also think they make an interesting parallel to how we view nature in a world where it is constantly under threat.
References and Further Reading
Simpson, J. and Roud, S., n.d. A dictionary of English folklore.
Hull, E. (1928). Folklore of the British Isles. London: Meuthen & Co., p. 56.www.thisisdurham.com/inspire-me/durhams-unmissable-highlights/legends-of-durham/peg-powler
EMMA KATHRYN
Emma Kathryn, practises traditional British witchcraft, Vodou and Obeah, a mixture representing her heritage. She lives in the sticks with her family where she reads tarot, practises witchcraft and drink copious amounts of coffee.
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