Baubas and maumas (told terrors)¶

Folk source [Historical record]¶

Vague bogeys used to frighten children into obedience (“Baubas ateis!”); the maumas is a bogey of wells and water. The great bittern’s booming call over reed-beds is didysis baublys, and the swamp-booming may lie behind some of the lore. They have no fixed shape.

Baubas and maumas (told terrors)


Type	creature
Status	The saga’s invention
Note	Bestiary §10. Danger I → II.

In the saga (where the folk are half-wrong)¶

The baubas is made of telling. Under the Pact told fears stayed stories. After the Unbinding, each time a mother says “the baubas will come”, a little fear settles in the dark corner of the house, and a family that threatens its children nightly feeds a real thing that eventually comes. The folk are right that it exists and wrong that they are only pretending.

Signs & habitat¶

A dark corner that children will not look at; a well that booms at night; a shape that matches whatever the household fears most.

Before / after the Unbinding¶

Before: harmless. After: real in proportion to how often it is invoked, and worst in households that have lost their other spirits.

Banes, wards, bargains, and their cost¶

Laughter, light, and a small pet-name (baubiukas) cost nothing, which is why grown-ups forget. Stop using it as a threat; then you need another way to keep children from the well.

Danger level¶

I nuisance → II hazard.

Story hooks¶

Books III–V: a camp of conscripts whose dread of the knights grows a baubas the night before battle.

Relations

Countered by: Gabija — Light and the hearth ward the told terrors.

Baubas and maumas (told terrors)

Told terror · Baltic folk belief, saga-true

Origin [Historical record] bogeys that frighten children (Baubas ateis!); the maumas of wells; the booming bittern · [The saga's invention] made of telling

Tier Dvasia · born of speech, no patron named

Danger I nuisance → II hazard

Habitat A dark corner children will not look at; a well that booms at night

Wants To be told: each threat feeds it

Takes The fear that settles in the corner; in the end, the family that fed it

Signs A corner children avoid; a well that booms; a shape that matches whatever the household fears most

Banes Laughter, light, and a pet-name (baubiukas)

Traits

Half-wrong truth. The folk are right that it exists. They are wrong to think they are only pretending.

After the Unbinding. Real in proportion to how often it is invoked. Worst in households that have lost their other spirits.

Actions

Settling. Each time a mother says the baubas will come, a little fear settles in the dark corner. A family that threatens its children nightly feeds a real thing that eventually comes.

Costs

Starving it. Stop using it as a threat. Then you need another way to keep children from the well.

The cheap cure. Laughter, light and a pet-name cost nothing, which is why grown-ups forget them.

Source: Bestiary §10

Connections¶

graph LR
  baubas["Baubas and maumas (told terrors)"]
  gabija["Gabija"]
  gabija -->|Counters| baubas
  style baubas stroke-width:3px