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Author
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Comment
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/13/05 10:58 am)
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Re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
Veronica's first post about what bogeymen do (they "get" you) is the one which has stayed in my head and made me think most. I wasn't going to post this as it's a bit OT and not very thoroughly thought through (I love words!) but Erica's comment has encouraged me.
When I was a child I wasn't scared that the monsters who inhabited the dark places might "get" me. I was scared that if one of my groundless fears turned out to be true it would then follow that ALL my groundless fears could become true e.g. if there are Monsters Under The Bed then my Mum could die. Etc. (Back to the why do we human beings tell ourselves tales debate).
When I became an adolescent I stopped being afraid of the dark/unknown (both outside myself and within) because I accepted the fact that sometimes random painful stuff happens and sometimes it doesn't. So growing up, for me, involved accepting the whole breadth of life experience as it is and not fearing/hoping for what it might be.
As an adult I've faced the killing power of the earth and I didn't find it as threatening as a street full of my fellow human beings in broad daylight or as terrifying as the entropic tendencies of my body to self-destruct through aging and illness.
For the record: I prefer being an adult.
Greensleeves your Boggleman pun made me LOL (better than Shakespeare's fetch pun!). Around here word-gamers are scrabblers.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/13/05 11:48 am)
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Re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
Along the lines of not thoroughly thought through (brilliant, Black Sheep) I wonder if the fear of dark places, such as holes in the ground or caves, isn't hard wired, the way a fear of snakes is--i.e. it's an instinct we're born with. Spaces under beds and within closets, at night, are like those holes and caves--places where you don't know what might be lurking. As we grow, we learn that darkness doesn't change the contents of our closets or what's under our beds--but bridges, now, they're open to the elements... :D
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tlchang37
Registered User
(1/14/05 3:35 am)
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Re: re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
Interesting thought about children passing along frightening culture. I can't remember a time as a kid when I didn't know about the bogeyman - though I don't think I took him too seriously. I halfway believed there was *something* under my bed, and if I was feeling particularly mistreated by my parents, I would masochistically dangle an arm or leg over the side of my bed, just to see if it would get eaten, and thereby 'showing them'... Ah, the logic of children.
The things that *did* totally freak me out when young were disembodied clothing that moved of it's own accord. I think it was Dr. Seuss that wrote a story about 'the green pair of pants with no one inside them' that rode a bicycle around the countryside, and became my favorite 'bogeyman' of sorts. My siblings and I would scare the pants off each other (pardon the pun) by shrieking that we were the-green-pair-of-pants-with-no-one-inside-them and chasing each other. We did a similar thing with "The Shadow Knows" - but being young, and never having seen that in print, we thought it was "The Shadow Nose" - another disembodied part to be chased by. I was also scared silly by the magically animated armored armies in "Bedknobs and Broomsticks".
For me, those were much more frightening, and tangible, than the nebulous bogeyman...
Tara
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Erica Carlson
Registered User
(1/14/05 3:57 pm)
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Re: re: bogeyman (or something of that name)
I don't think it's necessary to think through everything you write in a discussion board--so much interesting brain work would be lost or ignored if one were to write only finished, polished thoughts (just had a brief mental image of a polished thought--kind of a cross between a shiny pebble and a marble).
I'm thinking that it partly makes sense to be afraid of things (real and imaginary) when you are a child. The very fact that Western societies make a bit deal out of protecting children, regardless of how good a job we do, points to their identity as a group that needs protection. But, in light of Black Sheep's post, I wonder if many children aren't also afraid of their own thoughts and feelings and imaginings. The imagination is a great and terrible thing and maybe part of learning to use it is becoming aware of it's darker qualities and learning that just because you imagine something doesn't make it real (for better and worse--my six-year-old self still resents not being able to fly).
Out of curiosity, do you think children's own stories about "their" monsters differ from cautionary tales ("If you don't behave, the gypsies will steal you away") in any strong sense?
Erica
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/14/05 7:47 pm)
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Re: bogeyman + bridges
The department of Late Night Thoughts:
I checked the word dates in my previous post and they're correct. In addition the words "bogey man" don't appear together in Britain until 1890 (in Barham's "Ingoldsby Legends") and even that reference is to the Xtian Devil so I still think the bogeyman is from the U.S. (and thence from Germany's Boggelmann?).
Yes Alice, I believe that we humans (and our ape cousins) have instinctive fears. I would guess that the most primal is fear of the loss of the mother because if you're a helpless baby animal and your mother disappears then you're dead. Fear of the dark/unknown certainly seems to be instinctive too and it's easy to understand why, as you pointed out, because the dark/unknown includes the potential for encountering deadly dangers.
The department of Bridgey Bogeys:
No more troll stories Erica but...
The folk tale known as the dog on the bridge is found in England, Germany and Switzerland. It was first recorded in 1780 about Devil's Bridge in Cumbria...
www.mysteriousbritain.co....bria6.html
A similar tale is also told of Devil's Bridge in Dyfed where there is a weird bridge which is made up of three arched bridges built on top of each other. The lowest one is medieval and the whole construction looks as if it was designed by Mervyn Peake (the picture is top right in the second link but it doesn't show the full oddity of the three distinct layers)...
www.mysteriousbritain.co....yfed5.html
www.collectionspicturelib...alesc.html
There is the world's dullest fairy site at this bridge on the Isle of Man (picture takes a while to load and isn't worth it IMO)...
www.manxscenes.com/01&2/A...Bridge.htm
And Saint Edmund supposedly curses any bride or groom who crosses the Suffolk bridge which he reputedly hid under before being betrayed and executed (pictures of Hoxne including uninteresting cursed bridge and excellent Church stone carving of Edmund's betrayal)...
www.suffolkcam.co.uk/hoxne25052002.htm
Last and very much least... the troublesome ghost of Lady Tanfield is sealed in a bottle beneath Burford bridge in Oxfordshire. Legend tells that if the river dries under the second arch she will be freed to torment the villagers again.
Two of my favourite lines of storytelling are from The Three Billy Goats Gruff... the pure gold of "I'm a troll fol-de-roll" and the perfect ending... "Snip snap snout, this tale's told out!"
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Kel
Unregistered User
(1/15/05 3:38 am)
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*subject*
It is incredibly dumb for me to be reading these posts at 1:30 in the morning. I'm still a coward so my legs aren't under the dark desk anymore, instead they are folded up under me. (That scary story y'all were talking about is one of the few stories by Stephen King that scares me badly.)
I don't remember a time where I didn't believe there was something behind me, under my bed or in my closet. After second grade, I believed it was The Blob. Do you remember that stupid science fiction movie? Basically, it was Jello pudding absorbing people and becoming bigger everytime it did. That absolutely terrifies me! Ten years later, I still can't sleep for a few nights after seeing that movie.
Do you remember the dreaded bolt across the dark house to get to your parents or older siblings room? That was the scariest part.
And as far as kids passing on stories goes, I was told by some fifth graders (I was in third grade at the time) that Hannibal Lecter was frozen and buried under the jungle gym and would reach out of the ground and grab me if I went on it. (I'm beginning to suspect that they were lying and they only wanted to scare me off the jungle gym so they wouldn't have to share...)
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Random
Registered User
(1/15/05 12:25 pm)
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Registered User
(1/7/05 5:29 pm)
Re: The Bogeyman
Quote:
I don't think it's necessary to think through everything you write in a discussion board--so much interesting brain work would be lost or ignored if one were to write only finished, polished thoughts (just had a brief mental image of a polished thought--kind of a cross between a shiny pebble and a marble).
A pearl of wisdom, perhaps?
Bad jokes aside, I think that when I considered what happened when the monsters under the bed/in the closet "got me", I was always thinking of it from an outside perspective. It's entirely possible for someone to disappear without your knowing what happened to them, provided you don't have access to their thoughts - it never really occurred to me that if it happened to me, I would know what went on, actually being there during the "getting". I never really thought about what it would be like from my perspective.
Being immensely bored in bed as a kid, my monsters actually helped me to sleep, giving me an incentive to stay still and covered to the neck by the blankets (because, of course, this kept me safe), while occupying my mind with speculation about where they were and what they'd think when they saw me. I can't say they ever worked me into much of a panic.
The werewolves in the yard, on the other hand...
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redtriskell
Registered User
(1/19/05 1:28 am)
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ghoulies and ghosties...
Word origin is certainly interesting...but even better is everyone's recollection of the terrifyingly real monsters children endure. Did anyone else hide their necks under the covers to thwart hungry vampires? I believe the imagination is a thing both bright and terrible to kids- you have to grow into it. Besides, when you're a kid, everything is so strange and inexplicable and scary. Is it any more difficult to believe in a creepy, scaly monster under the bed (or in the closet) than it is to believe in divorce or death? All of these things- monsters, divorce, boogeymen, death- are equally strange, equally terrifying. And they're all so...amorphous. None of them are things you can touch or control or change. I think monsters serve the purpose of preparing children for the fact that life is sometimes out of control and that you have to find your own methods of protecting yourself- the boogeyman is practice. And I certainly believe kids gather together to pass on these stories, just as they pass on jumprope rhymes and clapping games and chicken pox. Children live a secret life under the radar of most adults, and by the time one grows up, one tends to forget the shadowy world kids inhabit. Did anyone else ever try to derail a train with a penny? Or cut open a tennis ball in ecstatic fear of the poison gas inside? My friend's dad told me if you swallowed a watermelon seed and drank lots of water, a vine would grow out of your belly button. A particularly gruesome image to me as a child. I still carefully pick out all the seeds, even the tiny white ones. And to whoever said the bit about being afraid of murderers and thieves, did you have a planned escape route? I did. It involved pretending to be a walking doll that would trick the robber (they were always "robbers") into letting me out of the room. For an interesting read on the subject of kids and fear, try Stephen King's IT. There are monsters galore. And a fine recognition of how children BELIEVE things in a way adults generally don't. This is great topic...
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/19/05 9:12 am)
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Re: ghoulies and ghosties...
If you're interested in children's secret lives, you might enjoy I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book edited by Iona & Peter Opie, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. It is filled with children's rhymes (with variants and notes)--by children, for children, and not the least bit saccharin, with lovely, sometimes ghoulish illustrations by Sendak. (Opening to a random page: "Cold meat, mutton pies,/Tell me when your mother dies./I'll be there to bury her--/Cold meat, mutton pies.") These rhymes change with time and place, but are rarely sweet. They are filled with violence, death, ghouls, and lots of humor.
A lot of Sendak's work explores this scary side of children's imagination. I think, in particular of Outside, Over There, where a baby is abducted from its cradle by evil fairy folk and replaced with an ice changeling, or of Where the Wild Things Are where a boy's room is transformed into the world of the Wild Things (which, for a long time, made me believe that my room was capable of turning into such a place). All turns out well in the end (baby is found, returned and missing parents are reunited; boy comes back to his room where a parent has left supper for him)--but the adventures are hair-raising and death-defying, and the art appropriately spooky.
Now that I think of it, there's a whole subsection of children's literature devoted to the bogeyman (alligators under beds/monsters in the closet)--time to explore the bookstore for more...
Best,
Alice
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tlchang37
Registered User
(1/20/05 1:35 am)
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Re: The Boogeyman
The people on this thread are not the only ones thinking in these veins - I went to see "Phantom of the Opera" (another sort of bogeyman-in-the-basement all together!) and they showed previews for the new, upcoming horror movie called.. you guessed it, "Boogeyman". It opens in a couple of weeks. :-)
Tara
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/22/05 1:08 pm)
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The Bogeyman Attacks!
I second Alice's recommendation of the Opie book and would like to extend the recommendation to all books written by Iona and/or Peter Opie. I'm fascinated by nursery rhymes.
But it's not only children who have secret and unreasonable fears. A contemporary legend has manifested its scary face in the city of Birmingham (uk) recently and became so widespread that respectable national newspapers printed denials of the story!
"The Guardian" reports the story, mentions the bogeyman, and tells the legend (vampire type with rascist subtext) here:
www.guardian.co.uk/uk_new...46,00.html
They then ran a boringly sensible article explaining the phenomenon of contemporary legends a few days later here:
www.guardian.co.uk/g2/sto...07,00.html
If you're interested in contemporary legends then both articles are worth reading (but remember that English newspapers are often ironic and can mean the opposite of what they are saying e.g. the bit where they talk about the giant of Aad).
Edited by: Black Sheep at: 1/22/05 1:13 pm
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JMerriam
Registered User
(1/22/05 4:30 pm)
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Re: The Bogeyman Attacks!
Has anybody else had their fear of the dark/bogeymen/things under the bed/etc come back in adulthood? I suffered from a violent attack some years ago, and on days when something happens to trigger memories of it, I have trouble going to sleep with the lights out. I compromise with adulthood by leaving the hall light on and my door open. I was not scared of the things that go bump in the dark when I was a teenager, and I think that fear came back because the attack turned my world back into an unpredictably frightening place (just as I perceived it that way as a child).
When I was kid, there were rules about how to survive the bogeymen, who I believed lived in the closet (the thing under my bed was more like a land octopus which I never gave a name to, I just imagined these horrible thick tentacles coming out and grabbing me). I have the impression these rules were relatively widespread: they can't get you if the lights are on; they can't get you if you are under the covers; they can't get you if you are on top of the bed.
I never made the running leap because I had a night lamp attached to my headboard, so I could get into bed and then turn out the light.
When I had to use the washroom, I took my covers with me, which I regarded as having a sort of shielding power. I often fell over because I had to walk on the covers to protect my feet. This must have been hilarious for my parents, but I don't remember them ever saying anything to me about it.
Our hallway had wallpaper in the pattern of art deco-esque black and white trees, and I used to think monsters could come out of the forest. But I also thought that if I moved in a certain stealthy way, nobody could see me, so I didn't worry too much about the monsters.
see how moonlight's sharp music breaks all of your windows |
anamithim
Unregistered User
(1/22/05 7:24 pm)
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boogey man
:rolleyes im still scared of the dark for the reason that something will come out from under my bed and " eat me" or whatever and im 14. anyone know how to get rid of this fear?if you wanna talk tou me about it please IM me on aim.(mestlovelife)
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Colleen
Unregistered User
(1/23/05 3:11 pm)
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Not Quite the Boogeyman...
...about three years ago I taped the movie "Candyman" when it was on late one night and watched in the following Saturday. (I did it because it starred Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd and I'll watch almost anything either of them has been in, not because I like slasher movies - I don't, usually.) Anyway, I've never had a fear of "Bloody Mary" or similar ghouls before, but after I saw that movie, I couldn't look into a mirror in a darkened room for the longest time. Very difficult, since the mirrored door of our closet was opposite the long mirror above the sink/vanity and going to the toilet meant passing between the two. I no longer have an active (and I'll admit highly illogical and completely unnecessary) fear of looking into dark mirrors - but I still avoid them. I think they'll always be a little bit creepy to me now.
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(1/23/05 4:25 pm)
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Re: Not Quite the Boogeyman...
I've never been good with scary movies, and while I've gotten somewhat better I still tend to avoid horror flicks. However, this summer I ended up getting dragged along to see "The Manchurian Candidate." Stupid decision, because I have a phobia of brain damage/control. I left, almost in hysterics, after about 30 minutes. For weeks afterwards I felt creepy when it got dark, and when I had to get in bed and turn the lights out, I couldn't get images from the movie out of my head. It was awful, but it went away eventually.
Does anyone else get creepy moments when you have to shut your eyes in the shower to wash your hair or whatever? Sometimes I start thinking there's something behind me waiting to grab me, and I have to open my eyes, at the risk of getting shampoo in them, to convince myself there's nothing there. Am I just nuts, or do other people do this too?
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JMerriam
Registered User
(1/23/05 4:35 pm)
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Re: Not Quite the Boogeyman...
evil little pixie, I do that too. I blame those movies where monsters come out of the shower walls.
see how moonlight's sharp music breaks all of your windows |
Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/23/05 6:03 pm)
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Re: Not Quite the Boogeyman...
I blame Psycho. Sometimes I actually have to stick my head around the shower curtain and make sure there isn't some knife wielding maniac who has managed to sneak into my apartment.
I just re-watched The Shining last night, so this morning I had to make sure Jack Nicholson wasn't stalking around my apartment with an ax while I was in the shower. It would have been creepy if he had been. It would have been creepy if Jack Nicholson had turned up in my apartment even without an ax, to be honest.
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/23/05 6:03 pm)
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Re: Not Quite the Boogeyman...
I'm very impressed by your duvet's superpowers Joanne. It's a well known fact that a comfy duvet will protect you from any peril in the bogeyman a to z (axe murderers to zombies) but mine only worked when we were on the bed and it was completely covering every inch of me.
As for leaving the light on... hah! That's just a cunning piece of propaganda from Monster Under The Bed PR! Don't you know that it's ALWAYS dark under the bed?! And in my experience nightlights increase the quantity of spooky shadows by a zillion per cent!
On a more serious note, however, I understand the resurgence of your night fears. It brings us back to questions about why we tell ourselves tales. I believe that we tell ourselves stories about our fears because they give us more control over them. You spoke an important truth when you said that the Monster Under The Bed has to obey the rules. We can't control the random painful events in our physical lives so we tell ourselves tales with sets of rules which control the monsters in our imaginations. I think these tales to control our fears are like the visualisations which athletes and top performers go through as part of their training. We practice being afraid, and reacting to our fears, and surviving the ordeal, in the controlled environment of our imaginations where we're safe and can try out different strategies. In the case of the Monster Under The Bed we practice running, hiding, thinking clearly under stressful conditions, identifying safe space, seeking available assistance and... and...
Visualisation, even in the secondary form of fiction, is very useful mental process for enhancing our everyday effectiveness.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/23/05 6:18 pm)
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Re: Not Quite the Boogeyman...
I think you're absolutely right about those issues of control, Black Sheep, and in my opinion, that goes a long way toward explaining why children have these elaborate fears and rituals. Because kids are truly powerless--even when their parents are loving and benevolent, they have little to no control over their lives and surroundings. So it makes sense that those feelings of lack of control and desire for control assert themselves in these phantasmagoric ways, and that they abate when we get older and obtain a greater measure of control over our lives, and that they would resurge when the illusion of that control is ruptured.
At least, it makes sense to me.
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anamithim
Unregistered User
(1/23/05 7:14 pm)
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boogey man
im scared of the dark cause something along the lines of the "boogeyman" will get me in my sleep or dark if i step on the ground. if anyone knows how to get rid of this then IM me on mestlovelife(A.I.M)
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