AI Summary
5 min readLet's Boogey: The Boogeyman Around the World (Vol. 1)
The boogeyman is not one thing. It is a category—an "ambiguous figure" that cultures fill with whatever frightens them most. As historian Marina Warner puts it, boogeymen "belong neither in literary or visual manifestations of art, but in that indeterminate, elusive territory that has been called folklore." They are not characters invented for entertainment; they exist to serve a purpose. According to the Dictionary of English Folklore, a boogeyman is "any figure deliberately used to frighten others, almost always children, to control their behavior." Krampus fits this definition. Bloody Mary, by contrast, does not—she exists in a different territory entirely.
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What you'll learn
- 1 Let’s Boogey: The Boogeyman Around the World (Vol. 1)
- 2 (02:02) **Introducing the "Let's Boogey" Series** - Ash and Alina launch a new bonus series exploring boogeyman folklore from around the world, to be sprinkled through spooky season
- 3 (03:33) **What Defines a Boogeyman** - Establishing the three primary characteristics that make a folklore figure a true boogeyman
- 4 (08:31) **La Llorona: The Weeping Woman** - First boogey figure: a Latin American legend of a woman who drowned her children and now haunts rivers
- 5 (16:24) **Evolution of La Llorona's Threat Level** - How the legend softened as societies changed and people became stronger swimmers
- 6 (17:56) **Jenny Green Teeth: The English Water Hag** - Second boogey figure: a nursery bogey specific to Lancashire, England, designed to keep children from stagnant pools
- 7 (24:54) **Slender Man: The Modern Digital Boogeyman** - Third boogey figure: a 21st-century internet-born legend that evolved from creepypasta into a global phenomenon
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Weirdos! For August's BONUS EPISODE we are focusing on an entity that has MANY faces and wears MANY hats: The bogeyman! For as long as people have been telling stories, these supernatural beings have been lurking in the woods, or in the dark alleys, or under the bed. They might look different depending on the culture they come from, or be called by another name, but their function in society is consistent: to invoke fear!
References
Briggs, Katharine. 1978. Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Carbonell, Ana Maria. 1999. "From Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros." MELUS 53-74.
Delsol, Christine. 2012. "Mexico’s legend of La Llorona continues to terrify." SF Gate, October 9.
Jones, Abigail. 2014. "The girls who tried to kill for Slender Man." Newsweek, August 22.
Leddy, Betty. 1988. "La Llorona in Southern Arizona." Perspectives in Mexican American Studies 9-16.
Newsroom. 2019. "Who was ‘Spring-heeled Jack’ who scared the women of Scotland?" The Scotsman, April 29.
Peck, Andrew. 2015. "Tall, Dark, and Loathsome: The Emergence of a Legend Cycle in the Digital Age." Journal of American Folklore 333-348.
Polidoro, Massimo. 2002. "Return of Spring-Heeled Jack." Skeptical Inquirer 22-24.
Simpson, Jacqueline, and Steve Roud. 2000. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP.
Strebel, Erika. 2015. "Judge says keeping Slender Man case in adult court will prevent repeat of crime." Wisconsin Law Journal, August 10.
The Times. 1838. "Spring Heeled Jack - Outrage on a young lady." The Times, February 25: 7.
Times, The. 1838. "The late outrage at Old Ford." The Times, March 2: 7.
Vickery, Roy. 1983. "Lemna Minor and Jenny Greenteeth." Folklore 247-250.
Warner, Marina. 1999. No Go, the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock. London, UK: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Young, Simon. 2019. Folklore Pamphlet: The Sources for Jenny Greenteeth and Other English Freshwater Faries. Pamphlet, Simon Young.
Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)
Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)
Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash Kelley
Listener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra Lally
Listener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025)
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