When my kids were wee I invented a monster named Gordy to keep them from the basement. I did this by making a pretense of going into the basement for something and then making sounds ( my best theactrics(?) of the monster attacking me. It worked too well. My poor basement is known city wide as the home of Gordy. My stories to my children and nephews are now local folklore. Such is language. Nothing is so lasting as to hear a tale you made up retold by a young adult to his/her child embellished with their own ideas. Poor Gordy was never really mean, and my children knew it. He and Puff are to this day docile dragons, still magic.