Chapter Nab to Namouna of N by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(4) Bonaparte, at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, was a bogie- name.

(5) Bourbon (Le connétable de). Muratori tells us that of all names of terror none equals this.

(6) Corvinus (Mathias) the Hungarian, was a scare-name to the Turks.

(7) Lilis or Lilith was a bogie-name used by the ancient Jews to unruly children. The rabbinical writers tell us that Lilith was Adam’s wife before the creation of Eve. She refused to submit to him, and became a horrible nightspectre, especially hostile to young children.

(8) Lunsford, a name employed to frighten children in England. Sir Thomas Lunsford, governor of the Tower, was a man of most vindictive temper, and the dread of every one.

Made children with your tones to run for’t,
As bad as Bloody-bones or Lunsford.
   —S. Butler: Hudibras, iii. 2, line 1112 (1678).

(9) Narseswas the name used by Assyrian mothers to scare children with.

The name of Narses was the formidable sound with which the Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their infants.—Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, viii. 219 (1776–88).

(10) Rawhead and Bloody-bones were at one time bogie-names.

Servants awe children and keep them in subjection by telling them of Rawhead and Bloody-bones.—Locke.

(11) Richard I., “Cœur de Lion.” This name, says Camden (Remains), was employed by the Saracens as a “name of dread and terror.”

His tremendous name was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence their infants; and if a horse suddenly started from the way, his rider was wont to exclaim, “Dost thou think king Richard is in the bush?”—Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xi. 146 (1776–88).

(12) Sebastian (Dom), a name of terror once used by the Moors.

Nor shall Sebastian’s formidable name
Be longer used to still the crying babe.
   —Dryden: Don Sebastian (1690).

(13) Talbot (John), a name used in France in terrorem to unruly children.

They in France to feare their young children crye, “The Talbot cometh!”—Hall: Chronicles (1545).

Here (said they) is the terror of the French,
The scarecrow that affrights our children so.
   —Shakespeare: 1 Henry VI. act i. sc. 4 (1589).

Is this the Talbot so much feared abroad,
That with his name the mothers still their babes?
   —Shakespeare: 1 Henry VI. act iv. sc. 5 (1589).

(14) Tamerlane, a name used by the Persians in terrorem.

(15) Tarquin, a name of terror in Roman nurseries.

The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin’s name.
   —Shakespeare: Rape of Lucrece (1594).

(16) Victor Emmanuel, after the promulgation of the law of conscription.