The Unexplained S1E5 Bedtime Stories: The Legend of Boogeyman

The Chira Project is covering different types of bedtime stories that will scare the pants off of little children. If you know of any kind of scary bedtime story, please share it with us. This is our Fifth bedtime story is none other than... Boogeyman!

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Who gave birth to Boogeyman? 
Slender Man gave birth to the iconic legendary scariest monster to have known to existed in the realm where only children could see and that is know other than Boogeyman. 


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Who is Boogeyman? 
He is the monster that hides under your bed or in your closet. 


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When was Boogeyman born? 
1505 But most active in the 16th and 17th Century.  

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Where is the Boogeyman from? 
America and then International. 

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The Boogieman Is Coming

Boogieman, also spelt as bogeyman, boogyman, bogyman, boogieman, boogey monster, is a legendary ghost-like monster. Having no precise appearance and conceptions like the other famous monsters, the Boogie man can change significantly even from house to house, within the same community, led on by the imagination of a child or a person. He is just a formless personification of terror.

Boogie monster can be used figuratively to indicate a person or thing of which someone has an unreasonable fear. Parents are often heard telling their naughty child of a Boogieman hiding under his bed or in his bathroom, all in an effort to make them behave.

The bogeyman legend is believed to originate from Scotland. These famous monsters are sometimes called: bogles, boggarts, or boggers. The word bogey is drawn from the Middle English bogge/bugge. The word Boogie man can also be linked to many similar words in other European languages: boeman (Dutch), buse (Nynorsk), bøhmand (Danish), pookha (Irish Gaelic), pwca, (Welsh) etc... 

The Boogie monster and the stories related to them can vary by region or within the same community too. The bogeyman can be a male or a female, and in others cases, even both. In some parts of the world, boogyman can scratch your window at night, maybe manifest in a "green fog" or hide in his favorite places like closets or under the bed, behind the bathroom doors. It is also believed that a wart can be transmitted to someone by the bogeyman. He can also punish children who suck their thumbs or for any general misbehavior.

To conclude, we can see that the bogyman or the boogey monster is a legendary fictional creature, feared by just anyone. Although his looks aren't really known, but nevertheless, he manages to scare the daylight out of anybody. http://www.thehouseofmonsters.com/boogieman-legendary-fictional-creature.html

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Creepy: 15 Bogeymen From Around The World

By: Jamie Frater October 24, 2009

The bogeyman is a legendary ghost-like monster. The bogeyman has no specific appearance and conceptions of the monster can vary drastically even from household to household within the same community; in many cases he simply has no set appearance in the mind of a child, but is just an amorphous embodiment of terror. 

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This list looks at 15 bogeymen from around the world.
http://listverse.com/2009/10/24/15-bogeymen-from-around-the-world/ 

1. Japan- The Namahage visits each house on New Year’s to ask if any misbehaving children live there. If the parents are able to report that their children are not lazy and do not cry, he moves on to the next house.

2. Korea- The Korean bogeyman is called Kotgahm, which is the word for persimmon. The legend is that a mother told her crying child that she would feed him to a tiger if he did not behave. A passing tiger, hearing the threat, waited outside the door for his meal. Instead, the mother gave the child a persimmon, a kotgahm, and the crying stopped. The tiger thought the kotgahm must be a terrifically fierce creature to be more frightening than a tiger. Today, the kotgahm is most often visualized as an old man with a mesh sack who carries naughty children away.

3. Spain and Mexico- Duérmete, niño, duérmete ya.
Que viene el coco y te comeráGo to sleep child, go to sleep now.

The coconut man will come and eat you.If you think of a coconut as a head, with the three holes the features of a face, you can see how El Coco might be transformed in the mind of a child to a hairy little man. During the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain, there were orphan collectors, who took children away in sacks. The misbehavior? Refusing to go to bed and sleep.

4. Finland- One of the most unusual of the world’s bogeys is Groke, a giant blue blob who is so lonely and sad that the ground beneath her feet freezes as she walks. She is not malevolent, just lonely. But she frightens people, and they run from her.

5. England- There are many theories about the origin of the word “bogeyman.” One is that it devolved from “buggy man,” the driver of the cart picking up corpses during the Black Plague that decimated Europe. As in the United States, the bogeyman may be nothing more clearly defined than a mist or fog, scratching at windows, or he is sometimes thought of as a tall, gaunt, scarecrow-like man.

6. Scotland- The boggart is a malicious fairy who causes personal calamities, small and large. It sometimes puts a cold hand on people’s faces at night. You must not name it, or it will become unreasonable and follow your family wherever you go. A horseshoe over the doorway will protect you from boggarts.

7. Bahamas- The Small Man has a rolling cart and captures children who are out after sundown. If he gets you, you will become a Small Person yourself, and ride in his cart forever.

8. Bulgaria- The anti-Santa Claus, Baba Yaga’s evil partner, Torbalan lurks in the shadows in Bulgaria, waiting to snatch misbehaving children and carry them away in a sack.


9. Czech Republic and Poland- Bubak is a scarecrow-like man who hides on riverbanks, making sounds like a lost baby to lure adults as well as children. He drives a cart driven by cats and weaves clothing for the souls he has stolen.

10. Netherlands- The Bolman has claws and fangs. He hides under your bed or in your closet waiting to grab you and put you in the basement if you don’t sleep.

11. Philippines- Pugot Mamu is a gigantic, headless shape-shifter who lives in trees and deserted houses. Self-beheaded, he eats children through the hole in his neck.

12. Quebec- The Bonhomme Sept-Heures – the seven o’clock man – may have been taken from the English “bone setter,” an old name for a traveling medicine man. The seven o’clock man steals children, but can only get you if you are awake.

13. Norway- The Nokken, a lake monster, will get you if you don’t come in when called.

14. Trinidad and Tobago- The Jumbies live here, post-death misbehavers. They are shape-shifters, so children are taught not to play with random animals. There are several ways to defeat Jumbies, however. You can leave your shoes outside; Jumbies have no feet and will spend the night trying to get the shoes on. You can leave a container of sand or rice outside the door; Jumbies will have to count each grain. You can cross a river; Jumbies won’t cross water. You can leave a rope with many knots; Jumbies will have to untie each one.

15. Italy- Italy has l’uomo Nero, a tall man with an unseen face, a heavy coat and a black hat. He hides under the table and parents knock on the table to warn their children that l’uomo Nero is present and will take them away if they don’t eat their dinner.

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What is the origin of 'Boogeyman'?
The bogeyman is less a mythic creature and more a folk loric monster created, most likely by parents who used this nonspecific creature to keep their children in bed and not out in the night playing unsupervised. The difference between mythology and folklore can be differentiated by the message of the tale and how that message endeavors to explain the phenomenon of life and the trials and tribulations that come with living. Mythology tends to be more religious in nature and offers life lessons to help the listener or reader of that myth better understand their own life.



Thus, most stories of the Old and New Testaments can be considered mythology, the stories and legends of the Greek and Roman gods can be considered mythology and even the tale of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars and any of the various comic book heroes such as Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Ironman can be counted among mythological tales. Folklore and urban legends on the other hand do not offer any life lesson and more intended to entertain by scaring or amusing the listener or reader. The legend of the bogeyman, also known as the boogeyman, boogyman, or bogyman has a vast and varied history, which is another way of saying that no one is quite certain when or where the legend of the bogeyman first began. As if often the case with folk lore, the origins of such stories are less important than the effect the tale has upon its listeners or readers.


Even the etymology of the word remains uncertain and may ultimately be derived from the Middle English word bugge which means frightening spectre. There are, however, words such as the German variation bogge, the Welsh word bwg, the Scottish/Gaelic word bocon and other such variations as boggart, boggy, and bubbear all of which refer to some sort of goblin or other horrifying monsters. The term bogeyman may also come from the Scottish word bogle which means ghost or hobgoblin dating back to the early 1500's and was popularized by 19th century English poets such as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns.

There also claims made that the word is a derivation of a popular name assigned to Napoleon Bonaparte by the British who called Napoleon boney and claimed that later evolved into boneyman. Whatever the veracity of this etymology, boney as a description of Napoleon was certainly used to scare children of that day. The term may have also began with the people of Indonesia from the word bugis which was a term ascribed to the pirates who preyed in the Straits of Malacca. It was, according to this theory of the etymology, European sailors who came across this word and the tales that came with it and took it back home and used the word bugisman to scare their children into behaving.

Yet there is even another source which described the bog men who supposedly lived in the peat bogs of English moors. The fear of these bog men was that they would come walking off the moors as zombie like monsters. In other cultures there is the bag man of Brazil called hombre de la bolsa or del saco, hombre de la costa, or the portuguese word homen do saco. The legend of del saco serves the same function of the bogeyman, which is to scare children and tells a tale of a bum or hobo who carries a sack on his back much like Santa Clause and steals children who have misbehaved to sell them on the black market. In Bulgaria the children are told the same tale only this monster is known as torbolan.

The French tell a similar tale only the creature is known as le croque mitaine, (the mitten biter). In Germany the bogey man is called Der Swartz Mann, (The Black Man), which is not a physical description of his skin color, but a description of his character and his proclivity towards hiding in dark places such as the closet or under the bed. The Greeks call him Babaulos, who also hides under beds. In Hungary the creature is known as mumus, and in the Netherlands, Boeman, Boezeman, Boezehappert, Jan Haak, Manetje met de Haak,and at least half a dozen other names. The story of the bogeyman is known throughout all of Europe and besides the countries all ready mentioned can be heard in Italy, Poland, Norway, Switzerland and Romainia, to name just a few.

The legend can also be found in the folk tales of Iran, Iraq, and India making any historical account of the origin of the bogeyman as hopeless the children who have misbehaved and now must face this mysterious and undefined creature who is prolific across the world.

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Links: 
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_origin_of_WHO#slide=1 (58 Slides)
http://quotetoremember.blogspot.com/2013/04/boogeyman-2005.html

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/where-did-the-bogeyman-come-from
http://www.ask.com/question/legends-of-the-boogeyman

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The Legend of Boogeyman S1E5