Hag

It's that time of year when we see words like "witch," and "hag" a lot more. Hag is an interesting word, in a number of respects. First, it's always applied to women; second, it's almost always pejorative.

The primary meanings are (according to the AHD):

1. An old woman considered ugly or frightful.
2. 1. A witch; a sorceress.
   2. Obsolete A female demon.

The underlying connotations of hag are typically both female, and old, with, often, an implication of hideousness, wickeness, and supernatural qualities.

Etymologically, hag is interesting because we're not absolutely sure of the derivation. We can trace hag very clearly back to early Middle English, but going earlier means following a broken trail. We have, in Middle English hagge, in a single attestation in the plural haggen, in the c. 12th century Ancren Riwle.

of hwucche meostersþes ilke men seruið i þe feondes curt, þe habbeð iwiuet o þeose seouen haggen.

of which masters these same men serve in the fiend's court, they have wived of these seven hags

We see hag again, in the form hagge, in the 14th century (c. 1377) B-text of Langland's Piers Ploughman.

He was bitelbrowed, and baberlipped also, With two blered eyghen, as a blynde hagge.

He was beetle-browed, and blabber-lipped also, With two bleared eyes, like a blind hag.

We don't see hag again, in any form, until c. 1475, where, again, it's used to refer to a hideously malformed woman's face. It occurs with some frequency after that, in a variety of sources and contexts, but still always in pejorative reference to a woman.

The etymology, such as is is, is Middle English hagge, possibly a shortened version of Old English hægtesse, hæhtisse, hægtes, -tis, hegtes and meaning "fury, witch, hag," and related to OHG. hagazissa, hagazussa, hagzus "witch."

The problem with the etymology between Middle English and Old English is that, while it makes sense, it's not really clear how hægtesse gets to hagge. As the OED puts it "the form-history is not clear, though an OE. *hægge might perh. be analogous to OE. abbreviated names, such as Ceadda, Ælla, Æbbe, etc."

There's a pretty solid exploration of haegge/haegtesse as an etymology here by Douglas Harper. He notes the related complex of words akin to hag in Indo-European languages, and offers a few possible hypothetical paths for the form-change.

Going out on a limb, etymologically speaking, I wonder if, given the repeated associations with supernatural women, and the fact that we do have a pattern in Old English for abbreviating female names, much like hægtesse would have been abbreviated to arrive at Middle English hagge, I do wonder if there was a Hag in Anglo-Saxon/Germanic myth, a particular supernatural woman, given that Ælfric, an early Old English author, translates references to the Greek female oracles to hægtesse; it's also the word used in Old English to refer to Harpies, and the Furies from Classical mythology. We see a similar methodology for Old Irish writers translating Classical texts; they refer to various super-natural and often malevolent female figures with Morrígan, an early Irish battle-field/war-frenzy goddess. Several of the references we have to hag in Middle English, and Old English hægtesse not only refer to supernatural women, but to women associated with prophecy. So I wonder, and this is sheer speculation, if there might not have a specific Anglo-Saxon/Germanic supernatural woman named Hægtesse.