Cheese Gives you Nightmares: Old Hags and Heartburn

Stories of witches transforming men into beasts of burden told by Homer, Apuleius, and St Augustine follow a narrative schema 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 "Old Hag." Cheese features in several of them. Although these narratives seem a far cry from the commonplace that cheese is indigestible and causes nightmares, indigestion and the Mare are inextricably entwined. This essay explores the relationships between them. [1]