Albasty is a malevolent female demon, shared by the Tatars with Turkic and Central Asian peoples across a vast range, whose special enmity is directed at women in childbirth and their newborn children. Imagined as a repulsive hag with wild, loose hair and long hanging breasts, sometimes able to take animal shape, she creeps into the birthing chamber to strike mother and infant with the fatal fever of childbed, and it was to keep her out that iron, sharp objects and vigilant watchers were set about a woman in labour. She is also the presser of sleepers, the weight on the chest that brings the choking nightmare. In some tales she can be captured and bound to serve whoever seizes a hair or a strand of her, until she wins it back and flees.