Bogey

The bogey (one writes also croquemitaine ) is a character malefic about which one speaks to the children to frighten them and thus to make them wiser.
Son role is often to mark the interdicts times, or spot, considered as dangerous: in first at night traditionally reserved for the demons and the bad spirits. A bogey can be dissimulated with the accesses of a river or a pond, in order to drown the imprudent ones. In the areas where the winter can be rigorous, a bogey (Jan del Gel, in Val of Aran) eats the nose and the fingers of the child (parts of the body the most exposed to gelures). The fear caused by the threat of such characters creates a fear which does not need more to be justified: the bogey would hide under the bed or in the wall cupboard and would wait until a foot or a hand exceeds bed to draw above, the child would be then aspired under the bed and disappears for toujours.
The bogeys exist in the imaginary one of all the countries. Their names are extremely variable and, except some characteristics which make it possible to identify them, their aspect is rather badly defined, which, in an oral transmission, makes it possible each one to think an all the more alarming being: man, woman, animal (the Loup plays sometimes the part of bogey), or even a fantasmatic creature like the Cambacrusa (or camo cruse , " leg crue") in Gascogne, which is a naked leg with an eye with the knee !
Des real and alive people (old, with the worrying, or alive physique in withdrawal of the community) endorses often, involuntarily or not, the personality of the bogey to threaten the children. The essence being of to believe in it. In this respect, the bogey, supposed to be a reality to be effective, between little in the tales of the oral tradition, which are accepted in theory like fictions by the listeners. On the other hand, it became a subject for the written literature, television, the cinema.

Etymology

The majority of the etymological dictionaries elude the question or mention simply obscure origin . Among the etymologies which are proposed, none is truly convincing. The word bogey appears in the literature at the beginning of the XIXe century. One on several occasions finds it at Victor Hugo, and in the song of Béranger “let us myrmidons Them” gone back to December 1819:
mironton, mirontaine,
take the weapon of this hero;
then, in truth croquemitaine,
you will make fear with the kids.
The term is made of two words: crunches , of the verb to crunch (to bite, eat) or crocher (to catch with a hook ), and mitten , which is more difficult to interpret:
  • Mitaine would derive from former French mite , who means “cat”. It would be thus about a “eat-cat” of which the goal would be to make fear with the children.
  • Mitten , glove with the cut fingers, or, to take again preceding interpretation, a leg of cat to the sunken claws, suggests the idea of an eater of fingers: the monster being then called upon by the parents to incite their small children to stop sucking their inch.
  • In a joke , a character known as: Crunches, crunches, my amy, crunches this mitten! by giving bellows to its partner. The bogey would be then the threat of a slap.
  • Another interpretation would rather see in mitten a deformation of metjien (Dutch) or Mädchen (German): little girl.

Origin of the myth

  • Plato refers, in the Republic , with a bogey of the name of Mormo .
  • Lesbos also knew a bogey: Gello the robber of children.
  • With Rome, a brigand of the name of Cacus was used to frighten the children. It was killed by Hercules.
According to some, the bogey would be in the beginning a kind of Loup-garou. It is supposed to be dissimulated preferably in the places dark and closed as under a bed, in a wall cupboard, a cellar, etc The belief, formerly very widespread in the Netherlands, according to which the bogey, on the order of his Master, slipped into the night by the chimney to bring the gifts, was born with the Middle Ages. In the house plunged in the black, the chimney represented worrying it obscure passage which made communicate directly with outside, the door of the spirits. And despite everything the grotesque representations of the devil, one did not forget that this one was to be a spirit, a superterrestrial power. Perhaps this was precisely to drive back this character of bogey, or by simple ignorance, or by pure romantic imagination, which one finished, in the New World, by reducing the Father Christmas himself by the chimney. But this variation is perhaps also the expression of a hope, that of the existence of a beneficial spirit which, even incognito, console the small ones when powerful the dorment.
The religious traditions gave rise to very early a character who, on established dates, comes to reward the wise children. It acts primarily, in Europe, of saints: saint Nicolas in first. One associated another character in charge of the other to him pouring, which, punishes the children to him malicious or disobeying, a misadventure of the devil, but which quickly becomes a profane character, an quasi-official bogey: the Fouettard father and his multiple alternatives. However that the religious aspect of Nicolas saint disappears behind the jovial bloated face from the Father Christmas.

Means of frightening the children

Sometimes the croquemitaines are disguised as soldiers in order to frighten the children. They are then armed with a saber being used to slice the language of the liars or to decapitate the lazy ones. In addition to the saber, they can also be equipped with whips, rods or trip hammers. They hide behind them a bag of fabric there to lock up the children who are not wise and to take along them until in Enfer. It is the procedure of the majority of the croquemitaines, of which the most known, the Bogyman, Pierre the Black, the Father Lustucru, the Ruprecht servant,…

To mislead the vigilance of the children, some croquemitaines do not hesitate with affubler of a houppelande to the pockets filled with sugar refineries, while others are disguised in Father Christmas.

Equivalents and quasi-synonymous

Each term indicating this concept seems to have particular characteristics which exclude any perfect synonymy. For example, English bogeyman and the term québécuois Bonhomme seven-hours indicate that this creature has human appearance at least vaguely. The catch seven-hours could have given rise to well the bone-setter (bonesetter) English, unless it is not the reverse. As for the term Bogyman , it seems to indicate a predisposition particular to whip.

Freddy Krueger is related with crunches-mitaine.

Michael Myers is described as being the bogey in Halloween, the night of the masks

(- Laurie: You believe that it was the bogey?

- Dr. Loomis: There is not the slightest doubt it was well the bogey.)

Babau ( Babaou , barbaou , barbeu , and multiple alternatives) is the name of the bogey in many areas of France and other countries of Europe. The origin of the name is prone to controversies: is it about the onomatopoeia of a barking of dog, of a cry of animal, acts it of a bearded being , or even of an evolution of the Russian Baba Yaga ? In occitan, babau indicates a very small animal, an insect, but also a kind of dragon man-eater. In Italy, one makes it come from Arabic and the invaders buckwheats. Barbeu would come from a word of former French meaning " wolf-garou".

Bogeys in works of fiction

The topic of the bogey (or " boogieman") is often exploited by the fictions:
  • the series " Beyond the réel" an episode devoted to it: " Under the lit".
  • the series " Buffy against the vampires" also an episode devoted to it.
  • the series " Special Links 2" also an episode devoted to it.
  • As well as the Charmed series, in the episode of season 1: " Does Is there have woogy in the house? " Or mitten crunches it takes the appearance of a malefic smoke which takes possession of the human ones.
  • Homer Simpson, character of the series Simpson, is afraid of the croquemitaine
  • the American series " My name is Earl" also an episode devoted to it: " Boogieman"
  • In 2006, an own-produced feature-length film, " Croquemitaine" , the topic under the angle of a comedy considered. * In the Video game " King Quest 7 the Princess Bride" Mitten Crunches reigns on the kingdom d'" Hooga-Booga"
  • the character of the bogey is in the center of the news of the same name published in 1978 by Stephen King in the collection " Dance Macabre"
  • In season 1 of the series Heroes, the term of " crunch-mitaine" is used on several occasions by Mohinder Suresh when he speaks with the Molly young person, and it to indicate a monster even more drawing that Sylar, a Serial killer who kills his victims in their cutting out cranium, malicious principal of season 1.
  • In the emission: Billy and Mandy, the bogey appears with some recoveries.
  • Without counting all the cartoons for child which could there refer.

Various bogeys of France and other countries

France
Anjou
  • the catch Misery
Alsace Brittany
  • Ar Grec' hmitouarn (the croquemitaine)
  • Barbaou : indicate also a scarecrow.
  • It hwiteller-noz (whistling of night).
  • Paotr Koz rear Mor (old man of the sea).
  • Paotr E Dog Legan (man with the wide hat)
Normandy
  • the Father Pouque
Berry
  • the Old woman Chabine
Meuse
  • the Man with the red teeth
  • Grandmother with the Red Teeth
neighborhood of Mâcon
  • Mother-in-Mouth : haunt the watery and dangerous places.
Région of Metz
Nanon Large-Legs
Lorraine
  • Craqueuhle
  • Peut' man
Poitou
  • Chabinelle
the Sologne
  • the Mother Draws Arm : judicious " to draw by the bras" the children who approach too much close to the wells
the Alps
Dauphiné
  • the Black Man
  • the Man to Wood
  • the Man to the Beard
  • Grand-Papa January
  • the Father Babaloum
  • the Mother to Water
  • the Mother to the Night
  • the Mother Foutarde
  • Ratepenate (Briançon): large bird which carries the children (occitan ratapenada , bat)
  • Marronne (the Haures-Alps): old woman holding a lantern.
  • Fit-old woman (Savoy): old woman who came to be of all her weight at night on the children who had not said their prayer (occitan Chaucha-vièlha ).
  • Papotchantel (Saint-Véran, Hautes-Alpes): old man.
  • the Stammerer (Frontonas, Isere): left horned wolf, with large white teeth and green tail, it carries the children to eat them in wood.
  • Carabi-bounet (Isere): character wearing a bonnet and catching the children with a long pole.
  • Faye daou mau-party (the fairy of the bad hole) and the fairy Caramogne (Isere): they hide in the faults of the rocks.
  • the Tiro-nègo (occitan, “car-drowns”) and the Car-kid (Saint-Paul Three Castles, Drome), drown the children in the wells.
  • the Mère of water seizes them by the feet and attaches under water with chains.
  • the Pattier , ragman (Isere)
  • the Garaoude (Hautes-Alpes): old woman who lives in roulotte, it takes the children in the street and the met in her large double sack.
  • Barbo
Lyon
  • Mâchecroute : monster which lived in Lyon under the bridge of Guillotière and which caused the floods.
  • Rafagnaoude
Franche-Comté
  • Layer Eight Hours : carry the children who are not lying.
South-western , the French and Spanish Pyrenees, Languedoc (list to be supplemented)
  • Cambacrusa , cam cruse (Gascogne): " naked leg with an eye with the genou".
  • Barrabau (Lavedan).
  • Barbecuge , bore-pumpkin (Gascogne).
  • Babe , baby , babèque (Gascogne, Béarn): woman bogey.
  • Rampono , Biff, unknown origin (great South-west): appears by blows struck a floor, a ceiling, a door.
  • Garamiauta (Couserans): character or animal, sometimes a Cat.
  • Totoya (High Béarn): old woman.
  • Camuchech (Comminges): left large black ball which continues the night walkers until they die of exhaustion.
  • Jan LED Freezing (Valley of Aran): giant of ice.
  • Sarramauca , Caucavielha (Languedoc): old woman.
  • Babau (Gascogne, Languedoc, Roussillon): indefinite creature (in Rivesaltes, it - or Babau is a kind of Tarasque).
  • Papu (the Catalan Pyrenees): ogre carrying a double sack.
  • Banya Verde (Garrotxa, Ampurdan, the Catalan Pyrenees): left green devil to a horn.
  • the Ome pelut (the hairy man): hairy bogey who removes the children and sells them like slaves.
Provence
  • Babau (Country niçois)
Belgique
Flanders
  • Pier Jan Claes
Wallonia
  • Crodjambot : bogey in general. He catches the children by the jambe.
  • Spètin : hides in the dark fog and places.
  • Pépé Crotchet (man) or Mareye Crotchet (woman): provided with disproportionate nails, or a hook to catch the children.
  • Madlinne-have-large-tchveas , Madeleine with the long hair, known as also Sinte Madlinne , holy Madeleine (Namur): drown the children who approach the rivers and the channels.
  • Djihan Djambot , also drowns the imprudent ones to him.
  • the Man with the Hook
  • Large-Me with the Reds Dice : or the grandmother with the red teeth.
Irlande
  • Alploochra
Angleterre
  • Bogeyman
Allemagne
  • Boggelmann
Espagne
  • El Coco

Counting rhyme

In the years 1920-1930, children of nursery schools (with Nantes) sang the following counting rhyme before returning in class.

you Know Croque-mitaine

Miton, miton, mitten
It has two large and piercing eyes
a large mouth, molars

Random links:Anglosajones | Jean Dewever | In vitro | Notomys macrotis | Matt Cornwell | Felix Liebrecht | Vieri_chrétien