B is for Bogeyman
Hello!
The bogeyman is surely the monster every child has heard of. He’s that shadow in the corner, the creak on the stairs at night, the threat parents whisper when bedtime comes and goes.
Parents might warn children that the bogeyman will come if they misbehave, but they rarely describe him in detail. And maybe that’s what makes him so effective—the imagination fills in the blanks, and what we picture is always scarier than what we’re told.
What makes the bogeyman so fascinating is that he shifts and changes from culture to culture, but always embodies the same basic idea: a creature that keeps children in line and lurks just beyond the light. In Spain and Portugal, there’s El Coco (or El Cuco), a shadowy figure that hides in closets or under beds, waiting to snatch away disobedient children. In Germany, there’s Der schwarze Mann (“the black man”), referring to darkness and not race, a figure who embodies the fear of night and the unknown. In the Slavic world, there’s Baba Yaga, a witch-like creature who rides in a mortar and pestle, terrifying and perhaps quite comically, yet undeniably one of the child-frighteners of folklore.
Here in Malta, we have our very own version of the bogeyman: il-Babaw. If you grew up hearing Maltese folktales, chances are you were warned about him at least once. Il-Babaw is said to lurk in dark places, waiting for naughty children. For generations, Maltese parents used him to scare kids into behaving—much like other cultures did with their own bogeyman figures. The interesting thing for me is how similar il-Babaw is to other versions around the world, even though Malta is such a small island. It shows how universal this fear of the lurking, faceless monster really is.
What ties all these creatures together is not what they look like, but what they represent: the fear of the dark, the unknown, and the consequences of stepping out of line. They can be seen as reflecting each society’s values and anxieties while still tapping into something primal that all children understand.
The bogeyman may change names and appearances, but he’s always there, crouching at the edge of bedtime, a reminder that fear can be both a teaching tool and a universal language.
Do you know of any other versions of the bogeyman, perhaps from your country? Please share in the comments. I’d love to know about them.
Reference and further reading: https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/Bogeyman; https://lovinmalta.com/malta/9-maltese-monsters-straight-out-of-your-nightmares/
P.S. If anyone is wondering about the bogeyman image – these last couple of weeks I’ve had some fun creating pictures using AI in which I included my novels in different (epic) settings as part of a competition. I’m also using AI to generate background images for snippets from my stories, which I’m uploading on TikTok posts. You might like to check them out here and let me know what you think. So all this to say… I thought, why not generate pictures for this newsletter too?
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Till next time! Wishing you a great two weeks with a good book!
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