Connie from Marana, Arizona, grew up being warned that Rawhead and Bloody Bones would get her if she went rummaging in closets or her grandmother’s hope chest. The creature—or sometimes a pair of creatures—dates at least as far back as the mid...
Tess in San Antonio, Texas, says her father and grandfather used to pretend to be bogeymen, playfully warning kids to be good lest Ol’ Santy Mocus come after them. The word tantibogus is a euphemism for the Devil, and Ol’ Santy Mocus may...
Kara from Rockwood, Tennessee, asks about boogeyman after hearing in Port-au-Prince that the word came from a Haitian slave-revolt leader named Bokman. That story is unlikely, because related words are older than the revolt that led to Haiti’s...