|
Author
|
Comment
|
aka Greensleeves
Registered User
(1/7/05 2:41 pm)
|
The Bogeyman
A trailer for a new movie and then Alison's Doppelganger post got me thinking on this. American children all know about the Bogeyman--he hides in closets and....
And what? It occurred to me that I'm familiar with this folkloric figure, and yet I haven't the slightest idea what kind of danger it presents. Vampires suck your blood. Check. Werewolves? Presumably they'll tear you apart. The Bogeyman? Got me.
Is there some classic Bogeyman tradition that this spectre is based on, and I've just missed it? Or is it like Dorset's Hedley Kow--spooky and malevolent, but quite unspecific?
|
Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/7/05 5:29 pm)
|
Re: The Bogeyman
Bogeymen get you.
That's pretty much as far as I was willing to think about it when I was a kid, at least! They hide under your bed and...and...get you if you dangle a leg over the side.
I don't know--perhaps they drag you off and eat you? Marina Warner wrote a book on the subject recently. Maybe she has a better answer.
|
cmoore0013
Unregistered User
(1/9/05 2:19 pm)
|
What I thought!
When I was a child, I was not able to watch real R rated films yet. I would occasionally watch a T.V. spot for them on T.V. Sometimes a charater like The Cryptkeeper would make me think that he was the boogyman.
I remember that I saw a spot for Tales From the Hood on T.V. There was a aprt where Clarence Williams turns into the devil(kinda looked like Tim Curry's Darkness from LEGEND). It scared me so bad. I kept think that he was in my closet and was going to kill me.
Video boxes scared me sometimes. I would sometimes, go into the horror section at my ideo store. The covers were sometimes very scary. All of the Nightmare on Elm Street covers terrified me. Freddy Kruger was the boogyman that I thoight about the most.
My pout is that I had many boogymans who I thought would kill me. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but it was for me.
|
redtriskell
Registered User
(1/11/05 2:53 am)
|
the bogeyman
Well, first off, I was petrified of *things* lurking under my bed or in the closet. Did you ever do the race? You know, where you put your finger on the light switch and calculate the leap onto the bed? I remember that the goal was always to be as fast as possible lest the creature snatch you under the bed and drag you off to its dark realm where very bad things would happen to you... I was very fast. Damn near levitated- my bed was two running jumps and a leap from the switch. At any rate, the term boogeyman comes from the word "bogey"- as in a hateful little goblinish fey thing intent on bedeviling people. Bogeys are imports from Europe, primarily the British Isles, where they have a long and varied history of being significant pains in the rear. As so many fey creatures, they are tempermental and not terribly burdened by what we would consider a conscience. You can protect yourself from a bogey's attentions by wearing a red thread on your wrist, putting your underwear on inside out, or bribing them with cream. If only I had known as a child what to do, I'm sure I would have driven my mother crazy by insisting on inside out undies to protect me. And on a slightly different note, Terry Pratchett's Discworld boogeymen can be frightened off by throwing a fuzzy binky over them.
|
evil little pixie
Registered User
(1/11/05 10:18 am)
|
Re: the bogeyman
I used to have an alligator that lived under my bed and would bite my arms or legs off if I let them dangle over the side. It didn't bother me too much; I just didn't let my limbs dangle. Funny: I remember that alligator almost affectionately . . .
Getting even more off topic, I've heard that if kids are worried about monsters, you can get an empty spray bottle, put a lable on it that says "Monster-be-gone" or something like that (with pictures of monsters behind the red circle with a line through it, of course) and tell kids it will get rid of all the monsters while you spray the closet or under the bed. I've never tried it, so I don't know if it would actually make the kids feel better or not, but it seems like it might work, depending on the kid of course.
|
Nalo
Registered User
(1/11/05 11:55 am)
|
Re: the bogeyman
Oh, I definitely did the leap! Was terrified of the monster under the bed. Eventually I read a kid's picture book that said that the monsters couldn't get you if you were actually in the bed. I knew it was only a story, but it loosened the grip of the terror, at least. I couldn't let my hands and feet hang over the side, but otherwise I was okay.
Wasn't there something too about they could only get you if it was dark?
|
AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/11/05 1:18 pm)
|
Re: the bogeyman
My parents, in their wisdom, gave me a captain's bed with drawers underneath, so there was no room for the bogeyman. On the other hand the closet was fearsome--it had to be shut tight before the lights went out. I wish I had thought of one of my daughters' solutions which was to place a chair in front of it...
My favorite closet bogeymen are from Bloom County (a comic strip
that stopped publishing in the late 1980s?)--I remember once a smiling
giant green one sitting on poor Opus' bed, smacking its lips and
asking the penguin: "You, uh... white meat or dark meat?"
I'm glad I was an adult when I read that. :D
Best,
Alice
|
Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/11/05 1:28 pm)
|
Re: the bogeyman
I like Calvin's monsters under the bed from the now defunct Calvin & Hobbes strip the best. They hide under the bed and whisper things like "C'mere under the bed kid! There're lots of good toys down here..." Calvin asks if there're monsters under there and they tell him "Nope! No monsters here!" "Then who's that talking to me?" he asks. The monsters pause. Then: "Dust bunnies...little dustbunnies." Heh.
In another one, Calvin has to go to the bathroom so he sends his pillow down as decoy. The monsters tear it to shreds and eat it.
|
DawnReiser
Registered User
(1/11/05 2:19 pm)
|
The Bogeyman
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
But seriously...I understand ‘bogeyman’ comes from ‘bugis,’ - pirates from Indonesia and Malaysia. Western sailors brought home fiendish tasles telling their children "If you're bad, the bugisman will come and get you!" Bugis eventually changed to bogey.
Though I have heard of the cultural bogeyman (the wendigo), the religious bogeyman (the Devil) and the personal bogeyman.
The bogeyman is our own fears realized in physical form.
|
Erica Carlson
Registered User
(1/11/05 3:54 pm)
|
Re: The Bogeyman
I did the leaping thing, too. The gate to hell was under my bed (on reflection, I was perhaps a rather egotistical child), and if I needed a drink of water in the middle of the night, or to use the WC, I had to jump off the bed and then back into it or the devils would get me. I didn't even like to look under the bed in broad daylight, and was too scared to tell the parents about it so I suffered in silence.
Hmm. Maybe this is why I now stuff all kinds of boxes, shoes, old magazines and stuff under the bed. It's not inherent messiness; it's a form of self preservation.
Best,
Erica
|
aka Greensleeves
Registered User
(1/11/05 6:15 pm)
|
Re: The Bogeyman
Dawn, thanks for that reference. It's new to me. I was going to reply to Red's post--those British bogeys generally have well-defined appearances and behaviors. We *know* what boggarts and brownies and other bogeys are, what to expect from them, etc. It's interesting to know that our Bogeyman and those bogeys may not be related after all.
My favorite contemporary Bogeyman tale comes from Stephen King's THE NIGHT SHIFT collection, about a father who has lost all his children to the Bogeyman (who lives in the nursery closet). Everyone tells him it's SIDS, and he eventually relates the tale to a very understanding psychiatrist. Upon leaving the psychiatrist's office, he realizes he's left his coat behind, and returns to the office to note that the closet door is just ajar....
I guess I was a fiendishly practical child.... I wasn't concerned about monsters under my bed or in the closet--I was worried about murderers and thieves. Probably a good reason 8 year-olds shouldn't be told Hand of Glory stories....
|
cmoore0013
Unregistered User
(1/11/05 9:48 pm)
|
Stephen King
I love that story. It's very interesting. I wish they would make a real movie out ofm that. The new one has nothing to do with it and there was one that was a student film that was on video. The student film was not very good and not scary in the least.
The gateway to hell was also under my bed as well. I remember the leaping thing too. I thought Freddy Krueger would pull me under the bed and into hell.
|
Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/12/05 4:07 am)
|
Re: Stephen King
Quote:
My favorite contemporary Bogeyman tale comes from Stephen King's THE NIGHT SHIFT collection, about a father who has lost all his children to the Bogeyman (who lives in the nursery closet).
I hate to show my ignorance here, as I've never read the story, but...
Why didn't he just move house? Or put the kids to sleep in a different room? Perhaps share a room with them? Or brick up the closet?
|
aka Greensleeves
Registered User
(1/12/05 6:17 am)
|
Re: Stephen King
I believe he tried all of the above. But it's been a long, long time since I read it. After all, the Bogeyman did find him at his psychiatrist's office (the "gotcha" of the story is that the Bogeyman has eaten [or whatever is is Bogeymen do] the psychiatrist and is impersonating him....).
Stephanie in the prairie |
DawnReiser
Registered User
(1/12/05 12:25 pm)
|
Bogeyman
What exactly are "Hand of Glory" stories?
I was never afraid precisely of a bogeyman but I used to have horrid nightterrors of rats chewing their way up through my mattress and clawing at my back....
|
Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/12/05 2:03 pm)
|
Re: Bogeyman
When I was a kid I had to leap into bed because of the Monster Under The Bed even though there was only a two inch high space for it to lurk in. There were also possible unknown lurkers behind any door cupboard/dark room/etc. The worst monsters live in the loft. This may have something to do with the fact that in average British houses there is trapdoor access to the roof in the ceiling of the upstairs hall/landing which was/is often poorly lit.
The Department Of AFAIK (everything below needs checking).
I believe the Bogeyman/Boogeyman/Boogerman in the sense which most of you are using the name is an American bugaboo. The first English bogeyman who springs to my mind is Raymond Briggs's "Fungus the Bogeyman".
What does the bogeyman do to you? Well... bogey (UK) is slang for nasal mucous and booger (US) is slang for the same... boogie, on the other hand, was/is I believe African-American slang for syphilis... the symptoms of syphilis can include visibly disintegrating/squishy/melting/icky flesh... nasty!
Bogey appears in English as a word for the Christian Devil in about 1836 but it quickly became more used as a word for a baseless fear or false belief (also bugbear etc) and may have been related to the earlier 18thC use of the word humbug. The word bogey isn't associated with pirates until about 1857 and then it is in reference to Malay pirates not Indonesian Bugis so the pirate explanation is probably probably a false folk-etymology (which doesn't make it any less inventive and interesting).
The closest word I know to the American bogeyman is the German boggelmann which, bearing in mind that there were probably more German speaking than Anglophone US settlers, may point to a more likely origin.
Edited by: Black Sheep at: 1/12/05 2:08 pm
|
aka Greensleeves
Registered User
(1/12/05 2:50 pm)
|
Re: The Bogeyman
The hand of glory... A link appears below, but essentially belief was that the severed hand of a hanged criminal could impart a sort of magical immunity to thieves, as long as a candle kept burning in the palm of the hand (or, variably, the fingers themselves were lit). The flames were not extinguishable by normal means. I'll admit it--this is the one thing that really, really creeps me out.
Hand
of Glory tales
Black Sheep--see, that's what I'm thinking. The American Bogeyman doesn't seem related--in behavior or etymology--to British bogeys. I find the Bogglemann reference to be very plausible (although in our house, that's someone very good at word games). And I sympathize with your attic terror--my own bedroom was a dark, buggy cubbyhole in our basement. Yeah, that didn't me a Cinderella complex or anything.
|
jill
Unregistered User
(1/12/05 9:10 pm)
|
re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
I never through about bogeymen as a child; I'm from Western NY, I don't know if this is a regional thing or not. I was (and still am to a certain extent) paranoid about ghosts. I did the whole leap into bed thing after having practically flown up the stairs into my bedroom. But that was never because I was afraid of something under my bed, but because I was scared that there was something behind me.
How ever, I was more concerned about not looking into mirrors at night, especially not ones in a dark room, and would lie so I couldn't see the mirror on top of my vanity when I slept. This was because I was terrified of accidentally calling up Bloody Mary, who would leap out of the mirror swinging her scissors until I either turned on a light (or knocked on the mirror three times), or she killed me. It was also said that she had to cut you before she could leave, and that the scar would never go away.
-jill
|
AlisonPegg
Registered User
(1/13/05 3:39 am)
|
Re: re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
This is maybe a slightly different take on the bogeyman....
The Bogeyman
|
AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/13/05 8:50 am)
|
Re: re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
I may be going too far afield here, but this discussion of the bogeyman reminds me of stories about trolls under bridges demanding payment from people who wish to cross--or else. One of my favorites is Neil Gaiman's "Troll Bridge" in Smoke and Mirrors.
Best,
Alice
|
Erica Carlson
Registered User
(1/13/05 9:51 am)
|
Re: re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
What I find fascinating about bogeymen & monsters under beds (or in closets) is that they are part of the folklore of children--kids seem to glean knowledge of them from informal (non-parental) sources. My parents certainly didn't tell me that the devil was any sort of bed-time threat, but I vaguely remember a conversation with a neighbor boy and another with an older cousin about devils wanting to pull you through the ground (and I only vaguely remember them now because they scared the pants off me at the time).
I'm now wondering what, in the culture of children (a hugely sweeping generalization, I know), gives this kind of story so much life and power?
On the topic of trolls, does anyone know of stories besides Three Billy Goats Gruff (or modern tales) where trolls hide under bridges? It's an image firmly fixed in my brain when I think of trolls, but I don't know of any other troll-under-bridge stories off-hand. I devoured Troll: a Love Story by Sinisalo while on break and really enjoyed the dark quirkiness of it, but my favorite modern troll tale is probably McKillip's "A Troll and Two Roses."
|
