Landvættir (nature spirits) are chthonic guardians of specific grounds, such as wild places or farms. When Vikings approached land, they reportedly removed their carved dragon heads from the bows of their longships so as not to frighten and thus provoke the landvættir to attack and thereby incur bad luck from them. Icelandic culture continues to celebrate the supernatural protection over the island and four landvættr can still be seen in the Icelandic coat-of-arms: a troll-bull, troll-eagle, dragon, and handsome giant. The troll-animals are actually jötunn who shape shifted into the form (and mentality) of an animal and such animals are supernaturally strong.

The Old Norse term véttr/vættr and its English cognate wight are descended from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz (thing, creature), from Proto-Indo-European *wekti- ("object, thing"). Vættr and wight normally refer to a supernatural "being", especially landvættr (land spirit), but can refer to any creature. The Norwegian vette is used much in the same way as the Old Norse vættr as are the corresponding Swedish cognate vätte (dialect form vätter - Old Swedish vætter) and the Danish vætte. A related form in the Slavic languages can be seen in Old Church Slavonic вєшть, (veštĭ), meaning thing, matter, or subject.

Be careful though, it contains essence of rusalka....

Yes, you definitely can blame the Mare, Purplepumpkin.
I am definitely going to listen to that band some more, Mia, I like the beat they use

If you're struggling with sleep paralysis, this creature might be familiar to you

The mare was also believed to "ride" horses, which left them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning. She could also entangle the hair of the sleeping man or beast, resulting in "marelocks", called marflätor ("mare-braids") or martovor ("mare-tangles") in Swedish or marefletter and marefloker in Norwegian. The belief probably originated as an explanation to the Polish plait phenomenon, a hair disease.
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Even trees were thought to be ridden by the mare, resulting in branches being entangled. The undersized, twisted pine-trees growing on coastal rocks and on wet grounds are known in Sweden as martallar ("mare-pines") or in German as Alptraum-Kiefer ("nightmare pine").
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According to Paul Devereux, mares included witches who took on the form of animals when their spirits went out and about while they were in trance (see the Icelandic example of Geirrid, below). These included animals such as frogs, cats, horses, hares, dogs, oxen, birds and often bees and wasps

Most scholars trace the word back to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *mer-, associated with crushing, pressing and oppressing. or according to other sources "to rub away" or "to harm". However, other etymologies have been suggested. For example, Éva Pócs saw the term as being cognate with the Greek μόρος (Indo-European *moros), meaning "doom". There is no definite answer among scientists about the time of origin of the word. According to the philologist Yeleazar Meletinsky, the Proto-Slavonic root "mara" passed into the Germanic language no later than the 1st century BC.
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In Norwegian and Danish, the words for "nightmare" are mareritt and mareridt respectively, which can be directly translated as "mare-ride". The Icelandic word martröð has the same meaning (-tröð from the verb troða, "trample", "stamp on", related to "tread"), whereas the Swedish mardröm translates as "mare-dream".

Yeah, I can understand why she's reluctant

Well, I'm not in the habit of thinking in comics

Well, there it is, and now I wonder if I have to start deleting cookies, because it still doesn't show up for me

That's a deception I didn't see coming