Babok, the Bag Man

**Babok, the Bag Man** is a classless Unseelie fae, and a member of the Coalition of the Classless.

## Appearance

At the Coalition of the Classless, Babok appeared to be 'smothered in filthy hessian and canvas sacks'.

## Life

Babok is a classless Unseelie predator. It's unknown if he was alive before Olphix and Davix created the classless as batteries, in order to gather power over time that the Mages would later take for themselves at their leisure.

Since Gwyn ap Nudd requests the Nain Rouge's help to ask for representatives from the Unseelie classless fae as part of the Coalition of the Classless, it's likely the Nain Rouge reaches out to Babok as an attendee. Babok later appears at the Coalition as one of the Unseelie representatives. The Coalition imposes sanctions on both Courts to end Albion's war with the Unseelie Court, stopping them from sending their militaries against each other, outside of territorial disputes, for a decade. Albion is to stop bothering inter-alignment communities, and Gwyn is to stop assassinating Seelie Courtiers and calling in his life debts to disrupt Seelie politics. The Coalition also assigns two members of the Coalition to serve as observers at the opposing alignment's Court, to make sure they are following through with the sanctions, though the Spider Queen serves as the Unseelie representative to the Seelie Court.

When Olphix steals the powers of the Classless during the ice plague, it's implied that Olphix takes some or all of Babok's powers, though Babok's fate is unknown.

## Folklore/Mythology

'The Sack Man (also called the Bag Man or Man with the Bag/Sack) is a figure similar to the bogeyman, portrayed as a man with a sack on his back who carries naughty children away. Variants of this figure appear all over the world, particularly in Latin countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Brazil and [South America], where it referred to as *el "Hombre del costal"*, *el hombre del saco*, or in Portuguese, *o homem do saco* (all of which mean "the sack/bag man"), and Eastern Europe. Similar legends are found in Haiti and some countries in Asia. . . . In Poland, children are frightened by the *bebok, babok, or bobok* . . . who is also portrayed as a man with a sack. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a similar creature is known: *bubák*. It's a creature without a typical form, connected with darkness or scary places, making children fear but not taking them away usually. The character of *čert*, the devil, is used for that instead ("Don't be naughty or čert will take you away!"). In Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, *buka* ("бука"), *babay* ("бабай") or *babayka* ("бабайка") is used to keep children in bed or stop them from misbehaving. 'Babay' means "old man" in Tatar. Children are told that "babay" is an old man with a bag or a monster, usually hiding under the bed, and that it will take them away if they misbehave (though he is sometimes depicted as having no set appearance). In Turkey, Kharqyt (Turkish: Harkıt means "Sack Man"- also called *Öcü*, *Böcü* or *Torbalı*) is portrayed as a man with a sack on his back who carries naughty children away to eat or sell them.

. . . In North India, children are sometimes threatened with the *Bori Baba* or "Father Sack" who carries a sack in which he places children he captures. A similar being, "Abu i Kees" (ابو كيس), literally "The Man with a Bag", appears in Lebanon. In Korea, *mangtae yeonggam* (망태 영감) an old man (yeonggam) who carries a mesh sack (mangtae) to put his kidnapped children in, thus, "Old Man with a Sack". In some regions, mangtae yeonggam is replaced by *mangtae halmeom* (망태 할멈), an old woman with a mesh sack. In Vietnam, misbehaving children are told that *ông ba bị* (in the North; literally mister-three-bags) or *ông kẹ* (in the South) will come in the night and take them away. In Sri Lanka, among the Sinhalese people, elders frighten misbehaving children with *Goni Billa*, (translates roughly as "sack kidnapper") a scary man carrying a sack who arrives day or night to capture and keep children. In the Western Cape folklore of South Africa, *Antjie Somers* is a Bogeyman who catches naughty children in a bag slung over his shoulder. Although the name is that of a female, Antjie Somers is traditionally a male figure (often an escaped slave who fled persecution by cross-dressing).'

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 14 August 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/10409742. Chapter 56: Islands.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 not\_poignant. “The Ice Plague: Book 1 - The Forest of Fire.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 6 September 2018. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/37093806. Chapter 28: Like Batteries.
3. ↑ not\_poignant. “The Court of Five Thrones.” *The Fae Tales Verse. Archive of Our Own,* 6 February 2015. https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749290/chapters/7205945. Chapter 29: Classless.
4. ↑ "Sack Man". Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack\_Man. Accessed 4 May 2021.