From Ghoulies and Ghosties And Long Leggetty Beasties And things that go bump in the night Good Lord, deliver us.

This is a traditional Scots (Lowland/Border) rhyme or prayer-like charm, long transmitted orally and commonly recited as a protective invocation against nocturnal fears and supernatural dangers. It belongs to a wider body of British folk belief in spirits and uncanny creatures—“ghoulies” (ghouls), “ghosties” (ghosts), and “long-leggetty beasties” (vaguely defined, long-legged bogey creatures). The closing line, “Good Lord, deliver us,” echoes Christian petitionary language, reflecting how older folkloric anxieties were often framed within Christian devotional forms. The verse is frequently quoted in collections of Scottish folklore and in discussions of traditional children’s rhymes and sayings about the supernatural.

The rhyme compresses a whole catalogue of imagined terrors into a rhythmic list, moving from named supernatural beings (“ghoulies and ghosties”) to a more local, dialectal bogey (“long-leggetty beasties”), and finally to the indefinite, modern-sounding dread of “things that go bump in the night.” Its power lies in that escalation from specific folklore to the universal fear of the unknown. The final plea—“Good Lord, deliver us”—turns the list into a miniature litany: fear is acknowledged, then countered by an appeal to divine protection. As a result, the verse functions both as a cultural artifact of folk superstition and as a psychological charm for mastering nighttime anxiety through language and ritual.

1) “From ghoulies and ghosties / And long-leggity beasties / And things that go bump in the night / Good Lord, deliver us.”
2) “From goulies and ghosties / And long-leggety beasties / And things that go bump in the night / Good Lord, deliver us.”
3) “From ghoulies and ghosties / And long-leggedy beasties / And things that go bump in the night / Good Lord, deliver us.”