Bauk
The bauk is a bear-like bogeyman of Serbian folklore, an animal-shaped monster hiding in dark corners, holes, and abandoned houses to grab, carry away, and devour victims, especially children. It has a clumsy gait (bauljanje) and an onomatopoeic cry of 'bau,' and is driven off by light and noise. Scholars read it as folk memory of the brown bear, once widespread in the Balkans.