Bogeyman


A malevolent creature from folklore. Some of them are merely troublesome and rather harmless, but others are truly evil. They are shapechangers, they move objects and cause disruptions. Although a bogeyman usually haunts a family, in some cases it can become friends with them and a playmate for the children. The bogle is a more evil type of bogeyman, although it usually harms only liars and murderers.

The bogeymen are vague and amorphous in appearance and they resemble a large puff of dust. A bogeyman can be spotted by quickly looking through a knothole in a wooden partition. If there is a bogeyman on the other side, one might catch the dull gleam of his eye before he has time to move away.


Bogeymen possibly come from the "bugis," pirates from Indonesia and Malaysia. English and French sailors brought the tales home and anglicized it, telling their children "If you're bad, the bugisman will come and get you!" Eventually, bugis got changed to bogey.