A good example of the way in which children were frightened by these bogeys is given in Theocritus, where Praxinoe who wants to go out to the Adonis festival says to the child who runs after her crying:
οὐκ ἄξω τυ, τέκνον· Μορμώ, δάκνει ἵππος·
δάκρυε, ὅσσα θέλεις· χωλὸν δ’ οὐ δεῖ σε γένεσθαι.[[246]]
Another instance is given by Callimachus in the Hymn to Artemis, where he tells that when a mother in Olympus cannot get her daughter to obey her, she calls one of the Cyclopes, and the indefatigable Hermes appears immediately with his face smeared with soot to personate the Cyclops. Then the child hastens in fright to her mother and puts her head on her bosom:
ἀλλ’ ὅτε κουράων τις ἀπειθέα μητέρι τεύχε,
μήτηρ μὲν Κύκλωπας ἑῇ ἐπὶ παιδὶ καλιστρεῖ,
Ἄργην, ἢ Στερόπην· ὁ δὲ δώματος ἐκ μυχάτοιο,
ἔρχεται Ἑρμείης σποδίῃ κεχρημένος αἴθῃ.
αὐτίκα τὴν κούρην μορμύσσεται.[[247]]
The Scholion on this passage says: καταπληκτικὰ φοβερά. ἐκ μεταφορᾶς τῆς μορμοῦς τὰ βρέφη φοβούσης.[[248]] The μορμώ here spoken of was a woman of horrible and monstrous aspect which Hesychius calls τὸ φόβητρον τοῖς παιδίοις. Xenophon likens the fear of the allies to that which young children have for μορμώ: οἱ μὲν Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐπισκώπτειν ἐτόλμων ὡς οἱ σύμμαχοι φοβοῖντο τοὺς πελταστὰς, ὥσπερ μορμόνας παιδάρια.[[249]] Aristophanes also makes use of this word: