Bloody Bones
Boogeymen being under your bed has been a fear for children around the world. While the boogeyman may be described slightly differently depending on where in the world you are or the folklore you have been told growing up, or even the kind of movies and tv you watch. One of those bogeymen is Bloody Bones, who has roots in English and, eventually, North American folklore.
In England, Bloody Bones was known as “Rawhead and bloody Bones”, “Tommy Rawhead”, or just “Rawhead.” It is part of an old nursery rhyme that went…
Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Steals naughty children from their homes,
Takes them to his dirty den,
And they are never seen again.
He’s been around a while, too. John Locke mentioned him in some of his writing published in 1693.
This tale seems to add to your typical bogeyman story with flare: not only will it scare you, especially if you’re bad, he’s going to take you somewhere and you’ll never see your family again. Yikes.
Bloody Bones, or Rawhead, isn’t confined to under your bed, though. He is said to prefer old, dark, dank places. In particular dark cupboards and under the stairs. And, if you dare to take a peek between the stairs or into the cupboard door for a split second the monster will be visible.
True to his name, Bloody Bones is bloody. He is said to be a humanoid monster with a scalped head and blood running along his body. He is usually seated and crouched on top of a pile of bloody bones. If he catches you peeking, you’ll never be seen again.
Because he’ll eat you.
When Bloody Bones catches you looking back at him, he drags you to his den where you’re devoured and your bones are added to his ever-growing pile.
And you couldn’t avoid him just by not poking around in cupboards or closing your eyes. If you were particularly naughty and disobeying or yelling at your parents, Bloody Bones would rush outof a corner and take you right then and there.
(Does this mean he’s always watching, like Santa Claus or Krampus?)
In America, the tale is slightly different. In the South, instead of one character having several names, Bloody Head and Rawbones are two parts of the same monster. Bloody Head is a skull completely missing all of its skin and is known to bite. The other is a headless skeleton that dances called bloody Bones. Perhaps when this story traveled to America, the confusion about the names forced a break and the character became two characters.
Despite this, its status as a bogeyman sent to punish bad children is about the same.
In the midwest, there is an even different retelling, this time just of Rawhead. In this story, Rawhead is the familiar of Old Betty, a well-known witchy woman who lived alone in the woods. Except in this, Rawhead isn’t humanoid at all: it’s a boar.
Not realizing that this wild boar was anyone’s companion, a hunter killed it one day. He decided to take it home and eat it. Dismayed, Old betty seeks her revenge and brings back the spirit of the animal from the other side. The creature that emerges isn’t the typical boar that she had grown to love. Instead, it returns from the other place as a human body with a boar’s skull on top, permanently bathed in blood.
The renewed Rawhead then hunts the Hunter, eats him, and is barely satiated. Taking back up the bogeyman mantle, Rawhead is then said to hunt children and eat them (especially naughty ones).
It’s always interesting, to me, to see how a folktale grows and changes depending on the country, time, and even the geographical layout of the land. Although, technically, this is all one character it has been many things to many children over the years. And, no matter what form this takes, I wouldn’t want to meet any version of Bloody Bones and/or Rawhead
The blog image is of An abandoned house - Bucharest, Romania - Travel photography. It was taken by Flickr User Giuseppe Milo, and Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Thanks to Jessica Lee for this blogstonishing suggestion!