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Laughter fell from him whenever he was asked if he was the bogeyman. He wasn't a mythical creature used to frighten children into good behaviour. He was such to frighten evil adults into doing so.
Although he often did take a variety of different forms and genders, as he travelled around the world, doing his work, work that he chose to do, shaped not by local customs and culture, but by whatever was needed to get the job done as efficiently as possible. Becoming the monsters who punished adults and not children for misbehaving.
As such, he had many names. Baba yaga, the bogeyman, with one or two o's, depending on which side of the Atlantic his work took him. Sock Man, El Coco, Cuca, Babau, Butzemann, Bonhomme Sept Heures (he never did like going out before seven at night), Awd Goggie, the Great Black Bird that would carry all evils away, Churnmilk Peg, The Gooseberry Wife who was said to guard gooseberry bushes and take the form of a large hairy caterpillar. He rubbed his moustache at that, wondering if he needed a shave, deciding that he did not. He enjoyed having it tickle his certain special someone and making them laugh, especially when they rarely did. The Master of Midnight was a favourite. Spoken of as being a skinny and extremely tall man who walked around late at night and ate those who roamed the streets. He particularly liked that one, being short and stocky. He did often enjoy eating those who roamed the streets though, although they did not mind and, once more, his moustache came into its own, just as they did. In Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, he was Royal. Where he would become King Richard the Lionheart, dispatching any who roamed the streets at night. The very image of a Middle Eastern bogeyman who existed since the Third Crusade and that King had wrecked havoc and let slip his dogs of war there. Now it was just one persistent terrier who terrorised those who killed for fun there.
His favourite was still the Baba Yaga though. He wasn't repulsive, but he could be ferocious-looking. And yes he was old, older than he was young now. Not a woman, although he had no qualms at sometimes dressing as one, when the whim took him.
He laughed at how he had heard hushed whispers of how he supposedly fried and ate children. When in fact, he had only fried those who hurt children. If only they could see how beautiful he looked, when meting out justice according to his own, harsh, yet just, code of conduct.
To others, to those he freed, they spoke of him in awed loudness. To them he was the nice old man who helped them, who was the hero. They definitely did not see any frying going on.
Both versions often spoke of him as a wild man, a witch, teeth bared, eyes wild, covered in blood and using the bones of his enemies as weapons.
He didn't know where the association with forest wildlife came from. No-one knew about his hidden hideaway in the depths of a wood in the Lowlands, or so he thought. And in London, the only wildlife he knew of were next door's cat that always greeted him, after he returned from his nocturnal exploits. Winding itself around his legs, begging for pets and treats. Oh and the local youths, idiots who only messed with him once, who only thought to mug him once. A poor attempt. One that ended in them polluting A&E, instead of terrorising the streets. Leaving the locality alone too.
Apparently he flew around in a wooden mortar, wielding a pestle. That would be handy, he thought, save wear and tear on shoe leather, not owning a car, not wanting to be pinned down with any of the necessary identifiers needed to own one. If he needed one, he would just borrow one from the neighbours. Leaving it as he found it, mostly, without the owners being any the wiser for its jolly escapades. A hut with chicken legs would also be useful, as a means of locomotion too. And would mean that his flat here, in the midst of a poorer area of North London, would not be necessary. He mused upon what said hut fed upon.
So all in all, yes, he concluded, maybe that was what he was: the Bogeyman. Someone invoked by those in need for the purposes of discouraging an adult from their wicked behaviour, from hurting those deemed lesser. The personification of terror.
And sometimes… the Devil.