Al (Hal)

Region/Culture: Caucasus, Iran, and Central Asia, anchored in Armenian and Persian tradition
Mythos: Armenian, Persian
Primary Type/Nature: Demons and Devils
Mythical Attributes: A demon of childbirth that tears the liver, lung, and heart from women in labor and snatches newborns from their cradles.
Role in Mythos: The Al embodies the lethal dangers of pregnancy and the early postpartum days, the unseen killer behind every mother and infant who did not survive.
Relation to Humans: The Al is purely hostile to human reproduction, hunting expectant and new mothers and stealing or swapping their children. Communities defended against it with iron, garlic, onions, charms, and a constant watch kept over the new mother until the danger had passed.

The lamp in the birthing room must never go out. For forty days after a child is born, someone sits awake beside the mother through every night, and iron is laid under the bedding, and the door is hung with garlic and onions, because something is listening for the moment the watch slips. In the folklore of Armenia, Iran, and the lands of the Caucasus and Central Asia, that something has a name. The Al comes for the women who are most alive with new life, and for the infants they have just brought into the world.

She is old in every account, and ugly in a way the storytellers seem to relish describing. Her nose is made of clay. Her eyes hold fire. Her hair hangs loose and matted, her teeth are iron, her claws are copper or brass, and from her mouth jut the tusks of a wild boar. Her breasts sag low enough to be slung over a shoulder. In the Armenian telling she carries a pair of scissors. In Iran she is a bony, thin old woman with a red face and a basket of reeds hanging at her side, and into that basket she drops the liver or the lung of the young mother. Among the peoples of Central Asia she is fat and hairy with a woolen bag where she stows the heart and liver of the woman she has emptied. When she dons a pointed cap strung with little bells, she vanishes from sight entirely, and the bells do not ring.

The names shift from valley to valley. She is alk in Armenian and Kurdish, ol or hal or xal across Tajikistan and Afghanistan, almasti or albasti among the Turkic speakers of Central Asia, halmasti among the Dards. In Persian belief the same demon is called Omm-al-Sebyan, the mother of the children, which is a grim joke given what she does to them. The als are not a single creature but a class of them, male and female both, though it is the female that the stories fear most, because the female understands exactly what a mother stands to lose.

What she does is precise and surgical. She reaches into the body of a woman in childbirth and takes the lung, the liver, and the heart. She destroys the unborn in the womb and calls it a miscarriage. She waits out the forty fragile days after a birth and steals the infant, leaving a changeling imp in the cradle so the theft is not noticed until too late. The danger is never abstract. Every death in labor, every baby that weakened and faded for no reason anyone could name, had an author, and her author was the Al.

The reason for her hatred goes back to the beginning. God made the Al as the first companion for Adam, before Eve, but Adam was shaped from earth and the Al was shaped from fire, and the two could not live together. The fiery thing was set aside. When Eve was made from Adam’s own body and given the place the Al had been denied, the demon’s resentment hardened into something permanent, and it has been turned against Eve’s daughters ever since. The women who can bear children are the ones who took everything from her. So she takes it back, organ by organ, child by child.

There is a way to stop her, and it turns on the one substance she cannot abide. The Al cannot touch iron. A knife or a nail or a horseshoe near the bed is a wall she will not cross. If a person is quick and brave enough to drive a needle into her garments, she is undone, robbed of her power and unable to pull the needle free herself, and in that helpless state she can be kept as a servant who must obey. Charms and prayers work against her as they work against other demons, and so do onions and garlic hung at the threshold. Her appetite is matched by a strange compulsion: once she has torn the organs from a woman, she runs for water, and if she reaches the nearest stream or spring and crosses it, the woman is lost beyond saving. The whole defense, then, is a race. Keep her from the water and the mother lives.

For all her ferocity she is bound by her own rules, and the rules are her weakness. Iron stops her. Water she must reach but can be denied. A single needle unmakes her. She cannot work where the lamp burns and the watch holds. The Al was first written down in European books only in the middle of the nineteenth century, but the customs built against her, the iron under the mattress, the forty nights of waking, the cloves of garlic on the door, are older than any page, worn smooth by the simple fact that mothers and infants died, and someone had to be blamed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Al in mythology?

The Al is a class of childbirth demon in the folklore of Armenia, Iran, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. It attacks pregnant women, women in labor, and new mothers, stealing their internal organs and harming or abducting their infants. Both male and female als exist, but the female is the most feared.

What does the Al do to pregnant women and babies?

The Al steals the lung, liver, and heart from women in childbirth and can destroy an unborn child in the womb, causing miscarriage. It also abducts newborns within forty days of birth, leaving a changeling imp in the cradle in place of the stolen child.

How do you protect against the Al?

The Al cannot touch iron, so iron objects like knives or nails were placed near the mother and child. Garlic, onions, charms, and prayers were also used, and people kept the demon away from water, because if the Al crosses the nearest stream with a woman’s stolen organs, the woman cannot be saved. Driving a needle into the Al’s clothing strips it of its power.

What does the Al look like?

The Al is usually described as an ugly old crone with a clay nose, fiery eyes, iron teeth, copper or brass claws, the tusks of a wild boar, disheveled hair, and sagging breasts. In Iran it carries a reed basket for the organs it steals, and in Central Asia a woolen bag. Wearing a pointed cap hung with bells, it can become invisible.

Why does the Al hate women?

According to Near Eastern tradition, God created the Al from fire as Adam’s first companion, but Adam was made of earth and could not live with her fiery nature. When Eve was created and took the place the Al had lost, the demon’s resentment turned into lasting hatred toward Eve and all her female descendants.