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When night falls, the hag is free to leave her body (or to shed her skin, depending on who is telling the story) to wander unseen on land, underground or through the air. The hag is invisible, but her presence is warm to the touch, and fells like raw meat.
When a hag chooses to ride to her victim's house, she will choose a horse and almost never a mule. The hag drives the horse nearly to death, and tangles the poor beast's tail into impossible knots. In the morning, the owner finds his horse in heavy lather, all but crippled from the ghastly ride.
What does a hag do when she gets to her victim? She 'rides' that person as well! The hag sits on the sleeping person's chest and face, weighting the sleeper down and meaning the choke or smother her victim. The vitims struggle, never fully awake, as the hag 'swallows' their voices so that not even the screamers themselves can hear their calls for help. The hag's flesh is said to have the bounce of rubber whenever her victim strickes out at her in the dark.
A hag can pass through any door, but there are measures to prevent her from entering a room:
1. No hag will pass a broom placed by the door. Hags will avoid brooms night or day, in human form or in their demonic shape.
2. Hags share compulsive nature and must count every hole in sieve hung on a doorway each and every straw in any broom that they encounter. It may take the whole night to count some objects left by a doorway -- and by daylight (the second 'fowl crow') the hag must go back to the body or the skin she has left behind. But beware! Some hags have learned to count quickly over the years and so can manage to get past the obstacles set in their way.
3. Because the smell of gunpowder terrifies hags, some people have put a loaded gun at the head of their beds at night.
4. Others have stuck match sticks in their hair before going to bed.
5. To get rid of a hag once and for all, a victim should throw salt at the demon to keep her from getting back into her shed skin. A hag will soon die without her skin.
6. Praying or cursing will kill a hag, too, if done fervently enough.
Of course, there are skeptics, too. Many Sea Islanders dismiss the while idea of hags and blame the 'victims' troubles on health problems like bad nerves or poor circulation of the blood.
BUT, how to explain the tired-out horses with those impossible knots in their tails?
WHO KNOWS?!