Crustman Returns!

I'm an archivist. Like all archivists I have a tendency to find some, let's say, interesting stuff while working.

Considering that I work in a folklore archive, Memorial University's Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA), that interesting stuff can get pretty strange.

Did I mention we're also a classy bunch?

Folklore is notoriously difficult to define. If you were to ask ten different folklorists for a definition, you'd get ten different answers. According to the American Folklore Society, folklore is:

the traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practice that is disseminated largely through oral communication and behavioral example. Every group with a sense of its own identity shares, as a central part of that identity, folk traditions–the things that people traditionally believe (planting practices, family traditions, and other elements of worldview), do (dance, make music, sew clothing), know (how to build an irrigation dam, how to nurse an ailment, how to prepare barbecue), make (architecture, art, craft), and say (personal experience stories, riddles, song lyrics). As these examples indicate, in most instances there is no hard-and-fast separation of these categories, whether in everyday life or in folklorists’ work.

A common saying around MUNFLA is,"You never know what you may find!" On a daily basis, we share among ourselves the most obscure, obscene, obnoxious, objectionable and down right outrageous bits of folklore. When I can, I like to share these oddities with you! 

While searching through our "Frightening Figures Index" I happened upon what may either be the best or worst scary figure ever. I present to you, Crustman!

Courtesy of Memorial University's Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA) 

Much like the bogey-man, Crustman (aka Crust man or Crust-man) is an "undesirable" character who steals children who don't eat all their food, particularly the crusts of bread. 

Why he cares, I don't know.

Crustman, more terrifying than a hundred root cellars!!
Courtesy of Memorial University's Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA)

Pictured above: this archivist's imagining of Crustman

Honestly, Crustman is pretty lame as far as frightening figures go (have you ever heard of The Webber!?) That being said, I do admire the lengths some parents went in order to get their kids to eat.

Even if Crust Man does sound like the WORST Batman villain ever.