Albasty (Nogai Albaslı) is the dreaded female demon of Nogai and wider Turkic belief, a wild, hairy hag with hanging breasts who preys on women in childbirth, on newborns and on solitary sleepers, whom she smothers to give nightmares. She haunts water, mills and lonely places, and is thought able to appear as an animal or a heap of wool. Whoever seizes a hair of her head, a needle stuck into her, or her comb can bind her into servitude. Explicitly named among the surviving pre-Islamic beliefs of the Nogai, she is the malign counterpart to the protective powers invoked over the cradle.