Made children with your tones to run for’t,
As bad as Bloody-bones or Lunsford.
S. Butler, Hudibras, iii. 2, line 1112, (1678).
Narses (2 syl.) was the name used by Assyrian mothers to scare their 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).
Rawhead and Bloody-bones were at one time bogie-names to children.
Servants awe children and keep them in subjection by telling them of Rawhead and Bloody-bones.—Locke.
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).
Sebastian (Don), 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).
Talbot (John), a name used in France in terrorem to unruly children.