A nursery bogey is an imaginary being invoked by adults to scare children away from potentially dangerous places such as open water or forests, or frighten them into good behaviour.[1] Examples include Jenny GreenteethWater spirit said to inhabit pools in Cheshire, Lancashire and Shropshire. If children venture too close, then she reaches out of the water and drags them in to their deaths. , Peg PowlerEvil spirit of the River Tees in northeastern England, said to drag children who ventured too close the water's edge to their deaths., the Black Lady of Bradley WoodsGhost which reportedly haunts the woods near the village of Bradley in Lincolnshire. and the Scottish bodachMythical creature in Scottish Gaelic and Irish folklore, invoked as a nursery bogey to frighten children into good behaviour..
The eminent folklorist Katharine Briggs was rather dismissive of nursery bogeys, commenting that they “[were] not likely to frighten anyone over eight years old”.[2]
The word bogey may be derived from the Welsh bwg, meaning “ghost”, as might be the name of a mischievous brownie known as a boggart.[1][3]