Our theme for the month of October is “childhood fears.”
Many cultures have tales of scary monsters that parents in that culture use to scare children into behaving well. The nature of those monsters, though, is subject to huge variety, and I’ve collected a brief list here of some of the scariest I could find, followed by the nicest. (Disclaimer: this is all based on info I gathered on the internet from a variety of sources, so take it with a grain of salt. At the same time, though, it’s all folk knowledge, so it’s not like there are textbooks to be referenced here.) In any case, enjoy the list:
H’awouahoua
Origin: Algeria
The H’awouahoua is a large monster made up of various animal parts, including a lobster claw, goat horns, and a scorpion tail. It threatens to kidnap and eat children, which is typical of these monsters, but it also has an extra hobby: piecing together the skin of its victims into a patchwork cloak. It’s horrifying, but you have to respect the artistry there. Not many monsters have such a good creative outlet.
Metminwi
Origin: Haiti
The Metminwi is a freakishly tall and slender man, with pale skin and elongated limbs, in some accounts measuring two stories tall. The “master of midnight” by translation, he comes out exactly when the name would suggest, looking for children to pick off of the street or through their open windows with his long arms. I’m cool with a wide variety of body horror, but something about the extra-long limbs just gets me.
Rézfaszú Bagoly
Origin: Hungary
Rézfaszú Bagoly is an owl with a copper penis—literally “copper-penis owl”—whose origins lie in Hungarian cultural associations: owls representing doctors, and the copper penis referencing a specific tool used by predominantly male doctors for abortion procedures a long time ago. It seems likely that the invocation of Rézfaszú Bagoly was first a warning aimed at young women regarding unwanted pregnancies, but evolved over time to apply more broadly to children misbehaving. Not so funny now, huh?
Soucouyant
Origin: Trinidad and Tobago
The Soucouyant is just one of many malevolent spirit creatures in the diverse folklore of the Caribbean—a category collectively called Jumbee. The Soucouyant is a sort of vampire variant, which sheds its skin at night, flies around as a fireball, and sucks its victim’s blood while they sleep. Supposedly, you can keep it away with rice on the ground (seems inconvenient), but anything that can freely enter your house through any other barrier just seems unfair.
King Richard I of England, aka Richard the Lionheart
Origin: Syria
Richard’s exploits near modern-day Syria during the Third Crusade earned him quite the reputation, apparently, as he was invoked for years to come as a consequence for misbehaving children. Sure, on paper, one English man doesn’t inspire much fear. But religious zealotry, organized violence, the Conquest of Cyprus, the Massacre of Ayyadieh…that’s all horrifying stuff.
Next, the top five nicest ones:
Wewe Gombel
Origin: Indonesia
Wewe Gombel is a ghost creature with prominent fangs and extremely elongated breasts. She is known to kidnap children from their homes, which sounds scary until you learn her stipulations. She only chooses children whose parents are mistreating or neglecting them, and she treats the children well, even returning them if the parents change their behavior. Supposedly, she is named in order to scare children into staying inside after dark, which to me kind of seems like it’s missing the point.
Qalupilluit
Origin: Inuit Mythology
The Qalupilluit are a group of green, slimy creatures that live along the Arctic coastline and abduct children who come too close. They have a sonic attack that emits from one flipper and paralyzes their victims, who they may eat, or alternatively may capture and hold in order to prolong their own youth. Fortunately, they’re also stupid. They’re shapeshifters (badass) and you can ask them to change shape into something more harmless like a seal (I didn’t know this was an option) at which point they are as easy to hunt as a seal would be. Plus, you get to have the spoils of a normal seal, which creates awesome implications about the nature of the shapeshifting at play here.
Gurumapa
Origin: Nepal
Gurumapa is a huge ogre who has unnatural strength and loves to eat children, but is “easily reasoned with,” which I would call a glaring weakness. The stories I read seemed to indicate that past events have left him bound to one particular field, counting pebbles, so he’s not much of a threat anyways. I suppose this also makes him a pretty poor deterrent to any misbehavior, other than maybe playing in that exact field.
Bauk
Origin: Serbia
Bauk is a large, hairy creature with long claws, who likes to hide in caves, but walks clumsily and is easily scared off by bright lights or loud noises. It already doesn’t sound so bad, and especially keen readers may notice that all those traits are also true of…normal bears. We know that cave bears were a species that went extinct around 24,000 years ago, so it stands to reason that there is a correlation here. Honestly, the non-extinct bears of today can still be scary, but we do know more or less how to deal with them.
Tata Duende
Origin: Belize
Tata Duende is a benevolent spirit who lives in the jungle and likes to cause all sorts of mischief, like secretly braiding your horse’s hair, or, notably, luring children into the jungle. He’s very short, wears a hat, smokes cigars, plays guitar, and has no thumbs (which I would think would make it slightly harder to play guitar). If you encounter him, you’re supposed to hide your thumbs, lest he bite them off. By all accounts, Tata Duende might just be a small, self-sufficient jungle man who is angry about not having thumbs. And he’s committed to his art form, which I have to respect.
Phil Rienstra (they/he) (’21) studied writing and music, and since graduating has developed an interest in labor rights and coffee. They’re an amateur chef, a perennial bandana wearer, a fledgling dungeon master, and an Enneagram 4. He lives in St. Paul with his spouse, Heidi.
