Types of 'demons, gods' sleep in folk tales

Evil gods, good sleeping elves, nightmare creatures . are "uninvited guests" visiting you during sleep.

Sleep is a normal human activity but contains many mysteries that we cannot explain. With each mystery, people in different cultures offer a miraculous story to explain the strange phenomena they encounter when sleeping .

1. The evil spirit is under pressure

In European folklore, there is an evil spirit who loves to sit on people's chests when they are sleeping. This god will gradually increase his weight and make him difficult to breathe, producing many dreams. The name of this god is very diverse and appears in many different countries, each place, the shape of the god changes.

In England, the god is a giant horse lying on his chest and carrying a nightmare. The Croatian believed, the evil god had the shape of a beautiful woman at night. The woman will visit the men in their sleep, lying down to torture and slowly suck their life force.

2. Leprechaun sleeps well

In the Scottish region, there is a legend about little elves called brownie. They go into the house at night and do the cleaning work to help you while you sleep.

But these guests only help you if you are treated well, if you don't treat or insult them, the brownie cuteness disappears. They will smash, threaten sheep, or steal bread from the window.

However, if you put some porridge or honey on the table before bed, brownie is ready to do all the miscellaneous tasks in the house, from cleaning the house, sweeping the house, the door, chasing the mouse, cooking .

As soon as you wake up, they disappear because the brownie are afraid to face people. The goblins also have a council to consider rewarding outstanding workers when people sleep and punish disruptive people. If one day wakes up, suddenly you find the furniture in the room tidy up, surely the brownie has just visited!

3. The god of sleeping creates the world

Abenaki has an interesting story about the dream. It is a dream that explains the origin of all things on Earth. According to this story, the Earth was originally an infinite dark void with the appearance of a giant god. This god lives alone in the dark from day to day.

Suddenly one day, because he could not bear the boredom, he decided to build a new land, creating living things in it. But he had no idea about the shape of animals and the surroundings.

Frustrated, the god decided to sleep. Suddenly in his dream, he came to a strange place, full of sunshine, high mountains, plains, sea, rivers, lakes ., everywhere full of life with birds, animals and people. . Waking up, the god was amazed to realize how many lives he had around him, that the dream made him use magic to create a new world of hope.

4. Creatures with nightmares

Nue is a legendary creature in Japanese folklore. It is described as having the head of a monkey, the dog bear's body, the tiger's leg and the tail as a snake.

According to legend, Nue can transform into a dark cloud and fly near people often when they are fast asleep. From here, the victim will constantly have nightmares, when waking up, he will be seriously ill and continually encounter blackness.

Unlike other fantasy creatures related to dreams, Nue is noted in history books. It was in the summer of 1153, when King Konoe suddenly fell ill after terrible nightmares every night.

The nightmare only ended when a brave samurai ran to the roof and shot an arrow at the strange dark cloud. Immediately, the word cloud fell out like a legendary Nue. From here, the king can return to normal, no longer having nightmares and sickness.

5. Than Cat

Many parts of the world share the story of the Sand God - a god who sprinkled sand into his eyes while sleeping to bring beautiful dreams to the girls, the boy. If you wake up when your eyes are rusty, that's because Shen Cat visited you the night before.

Sand God was first introduced in literature in an Andersen story. The story is about a sleeping god, blowing sand into the eyes of a good child so that they can sleep well, then he uses the color umbrella to bring beautiful dreams to the children.

However, there is a heterosexual version of the Sand God that was released in 1816 named Der Sandman, which is terrifying. In the book, the God of Sand is a crazy person with terrifying power, causing children to cry. His sand caused the children's eyes to fall, then the evil god gathered them and made food for his demons in the iron fortress on the Moon.