Mare
A Phasmophobia ghost that grows bolder in the dark and fights the lights.
via Wikipedia: Mare (folklore) · see source
The Mare is one of the ghost types in Phasmophobia, defined by its dislike of light. Its evidence is Ghost Orb, Ghost Writing and Spirit Box.
A Mare cannot turn lights on and favours switching them off. If a player turns on a light within about 4 metres of it on the same floor, it has a 1-in-7 chance of switching that light straight back off, and it still can when the fuse box is off or broken. It is also more likely than other ghosts to pick the light-shattering ghost event. The journal sums it up: the Mare is more likely to attack in the dark, and turning lights on around it lowers that chance. The ghost takes its name from the mare of Germanic and Slavic folklore, a night spirit that sits on sleepers' chests; that folklore is described below.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Ghost (Phasmophobia)
- Name origin
- The mare of Germanic and Slavic folklore
Lore & Background
The word mare comes from the Old English feminine noun mære, with cognates across Germanic and Slavic languages including Old Norse mara, German Mahr, and Polish mara. These trace back to Proto-Germanic marōn and the Proto-Indo-European root mer-, associated with crushing, pressing, and oppressing. In Nordic folklore, the mare is attested as early as the 13th century Ynglinga saga, where King Vanlandi Sveigðisson of Uppsala lost his life to a nightmare conjured by the Finnish sorceress Huld.
The king complained the nightmare "rode him," then "trod on his legs" until his men seized his feet, at which the creature fatally "pressed down on his head." In German folklore, the mare is related to the alp, with the German word for nightmare being Albtraum. The mare enters a house through a hole the carpenter forgot to plug, and can be captured by plugging the hole. In one tale, a male môr caught this way became a woman's husband, fathering her children, but left after being told about the hole, returning just once a year.
Elsewhere in Phasmophobia
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced