The Boogeyman
Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore
Multitude
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2023
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There’s monsters that our parents warned us about, mostly because if they just told us to do something, we wouldn’t listen: Boogeymen! We go through some of the original boogeymen, where they came from, and how they’ve transformed over the years. And don’t worry, we make up some original boogeymen that you can pass down to future generations!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of injury, death, child death, child endangerment, drowning, animal attacks, teeth, cannibalism, kidnapping, animal death, bugs, body horror, and human trafficking.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends starting the tradition you’ve been dreaming of.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at https://spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Listen to Tell Me About It in your podcast app now, or at https://tmaipod.com !
Sponsors
- BetterHelp is an online therapy service. Get 10% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/spirits
- Embrace Pet Insurance, which you can sign up for today at https://EmbracePetInsurance.com/SPIRITS
- Ravensburger jigsaw puzzles, available in your local game store or on Amazon today!
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: https://spiritspodcast.com
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/spiritspodcast
- Merch: https://spiritspodcast.com/merch
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/spiritspodcast
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spiritspodcast
- Tumblr: https://spiritspodcast.tumblr.com
- Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/group/show/205387
Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. |
| 0:33.0 | Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. |
| 0:37.1 | I'm Amanda. And I'm |
| 0:38.3 | Julia. And Julia, this episode, it's like, it's kind of creeping up behind me, like, |
| 0:43.9 | just out the field of my vision. And it's trying to teach me some kind of moral about how to, like, |
| 0:48.7 | stay safe in the world. Ah, ha. It's a boogeyman. It's the boogie man. Yes, Amanda, this week we are talking about the bogeyman or the bogeyman, but because we're from the U.S., we're probably going to say bogeyman for most of this episode. |
| 1:01.8 | But when we're talking about the bogeyman or the bogeyman, we are talking about these spirits or monsters, who's basically, as you summed up so beautifully, main job is to scare children into good behavior. |
| 1:13.8 | This is something we have talked about a bunch on the show. |
| 1:16.7 | One of my favorite examples of this trope so far has been the story Leah Lem relayed at the end of our episode about Paul Bunyan and all of the indigenous folklore and ways of knowing that she grew up with, |
| 1:28.7 | all of which are technology to help keep kids safe and impart, you know, important lessons. |
| 1:33.7 | Yes. And I think that is a very much a global phenomenon. So when we're talking about, like, |
| 1:39.0 | using stories to teach lessons to children, that is something that you can find across the world in various |
| 1:45.2 | different cultures and stuff like that. The interesting part about the bogeys or the bogeys is |
| 1:51.0 | whether it is like being on time or not going places they aren't supposed to go. The boogeyman is |
| 1:57.9 | designed to like use fear to get children to act a certain way. |
| 2:01.2 | But what we're talking about today is like it comes in very various names. |
| 2:06.7 | We're talking about boogeyman. |
| 2:07.9 | We're talking about nursery bogeys, nursery sprites and even bug bears. |
| 2:13.3 | Now these are like very specific to when we're talking about these specific phrases like the bogeyman, the bogeys, the nursery sprites, the bug bears. |
| 2:22.8 | These are very specific to both like England, the British Isles, and North America, specifically the United States. |
| 2:30.6 | So I am very excited to kind of dig into those specific stories and these figures. But |
| 2:36.5 | Amanda, when you were growing up, did you have any kind of boogeyman that your parents told you |
... |
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