From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

This rhyming petition is a well-known piece of Scots folk tradition, often treated as a “Scottish proverb” or fragment of an old prayer. It reflects a rural, pre-modern worldview in which the night was associated with supernatural dangers—ghosts, goblins (“ghoulies”), and uncanny creatures (“long-leggedy beasties”). The closing line, “Good Lord, deliver us!”, gives it the cadence of a protective Christian invocation, suggesting the way older folkloric fears were framed within popular religiosity. The verse circulated orally for generations and was later widely popularized in print and anthologies of Scottish sayings and folklore, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The lines compress a catalogue of nocturnal terrors into playful, rhythmic Scots diction. Its humor (“long-leggedy beasties”) coexists with genuine anxiety about what cannot be seen or explained after dark. The final plea turns the list into a miniature prayer: the speaker acknowledges vulnerability and seeks divine protection against both imagined and unknown threats (“things that go bump in the night” has become a general phrase for mysterious fears). The proverb’s endurance lies in this balance—comic exaggeration that still names a real human impulse to personify danger and to ask for reassurance when faced with uncertainty.

1) “From ghoulies and ghosties / And long-leggity beasties / And things that go bump in the night / Good Lord, deliver us!”
2) “From ghouls and ghosties / And long-legged 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 / Lord, deliver us!”