scarebabe

Updated: May 6, 2025

"Tush! feare not the dodge; I'll rather put on my flashing red nose, and my flaming face, and come wrapped in a calfe's skin, and cry 'Ho! ho! ho!" Again, "I'll put me on my great carnation nose, and wrap me in a rousing calf's-skin suit, and come like some hob-goblin, or some Devil ascended from the grisly pit of hell, and like a scarebabe make him take to his legs; I'll play the Devil, I warrant ye."

R. J. Broadbent - A History of Pantomime

Gone is that scarebabe stentor, that bellowing bull of Bashan the village blacksmith, gone is the melodious carpenter, gone the brawny shepherd with the red hair, who roared more lustily than all, until they came to the words, "Shepherds with your flocks abiding," when modesty covered him with confusion, and compelled him to be silent, as though his own health were being drunk.

Samuel Butler - The Way of All Flesh