Bugbears are scrawny, pot-bellied goblins bound not to oaks (11.01) but to pumpkins. When they pop headless out of a pumpkin patch, they carve themselves a face, light their eyes with candle stubs and fill their jaws with stones, sticks or broken glass. They wear whatever clothes they can find, seeming to prefer dresses. They speak with the voice of a small child; all bugbears sound the same.
Bugbears kidnap people – preferably children – for The Sack Man’s purposes. However, ancient contract forbids them from doing so unless the child is ‘unwanted’. This requirement is not strict; it is enough that a mother mumbles that she wishes that her child had ‘never been born’ or that a father idly threatens to send his child to the salt mines.
A child can detect a bugbear by the light flickering from his or her wardrobe or from under the bed. If seized by the impossibly strong creature, the child’s only chance is to blow out its eyes and escape the now-blinded kidnapper.
Connection:
- A band of bugbears are up in the Grey Mountains, they seem to be on a mission on behalf of the Sack Man (14.02).
- Some bugbears are off performing with the Grey Comedy against their will (24.12).