invoked-to-frighten-children-into-obedience

Mormo · salience 0.95

“Whatever her origin, her working life in antiquity was domestic — she was the name nurses and mothers invoked to keep children in line, the threat that something would come in the night and bite the disobedient.”

Black Annis · salience 0.9

“Parents would often invoke her name to frighten children into good behavior, warning them that Black Annis would come for them if they misbehaved or wandered too far from home.”

Lamia · salience 0.9

“She is closely associated with the empousai and mormolykeia, female bogey-figures invoked in Greek folklore to frighten children into good behavior, and ancient writers describe "Lamia" being used as a nursery bogeywoman's name long after the original myth”

Bogeyman · salience 0.85

“In many traditions, the Bogeyman serves as a cautionary tale, used by parents to encourage good behavior in children.”

Rougarou · salience 0.85

“In much of Cajun tradition, the Rougarou legend was also used as a cautionary tale to keep children from wandering into the swamp alone or from breaking Catholic obligations such as observing Lent, since one recurring motif holds that a person who breaks Lent for seven consecutive years is doomed to transform into a Rougarou.”

Loup-Garou · salience 0.85

“Like its Louisiana descendant, the loup-garou was long invoked to frighten children into obedience and away from the night woods.”

Bocan · salience 0.8

“In its more generic 'bogey' role the same word family is invoked to frighten children into obedience, functioning as an ancestor of the modern bogeyman, and covers assorted local tales of a spirit that torments a specific place until confronted. The clearest honest statement about Bocan is that the sources document a category more reliably than a character: a shared word covering bocan, bauchan, bogan, bogie, bogle, and the distinct but obviously cognate Manx buggane, used across Gaelic- and English-speaking communities of the northern and western British Isles for much the same behavioral type.”

Asin

“Reference works give her a hair-covered body, hands that end in claws, and a mouthful of wolfish teeth, and note that she is classed among nursery-bogie figures used to warn children away from wandering too far from home.”