The Sandman is a mythical character in European folklore who puts people to sleep and encourages and inspires beautiful dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto their eyes.
Representation in traditional folklore
The Sandman is a traditional character in many children's stories and books. In Scandinavian folklore, he is said to sprinkle sand or dust on or into the eyes of children at night to bring on sleep and dreams. The grit or "sleep" (rheum) in one's eyes upon waking is the supposed result of the Sandman's work the previous night.
Literature
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) wrote a short story in 1816 titled Der Sandmann, which showed how sinister such a character could be made. According to the protagonist's nurse, he threw sand in the eyes of children who would not sleep, with the result of those eyes falling out and being collected by the Sandman, who then takes the eyes to his iron nest on the Moon and uses them to feed his children. The protagonist of the story grows to associate this nightmarish creature with the genuinely sinister figure of his father's associate, Coppelius. In Romanian folklore, there is a similar character, Moș Ene (Ene the Elder). Hoffmann's version of the sandman is also similar to the French Canadian character known as the (Goodmaan Seven O’Clock), who, in some versions, throws sand in children's eyes to blind them so that he may capture them. Contrarily to the sandman, his bag is the place where he traps children who do not go to bed.
Hans Christian Andersen's 1841 folk tale Ole Lukøje introduced the Sandman, named Ole Lukøje, by relating dreams he gave to a young boy in a week through his magical technique of sprinkling dust in the eyes of the children. "Ole" is a Danish first name and "Lukøje" means "close eye". Andersen wrote:
In Norway and Sweden, he is called John Blund or Jon Blund ("blunda" is a verb that means both "to shut one's ones" and "to keep one's eyes shut", and "[en] blund" is a noun that means both "[an] occurrence of eyes shut" and "[an] occurrence of sleep"), and in the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of southern Africa, he is referred to as "Klaas Vaak".
Klaas Vaak is a character in a Dutch Musical 'De sprookjesmusical Klaas Vaak", has its own TV-series 'Fairytales of Klaas Vaak' and is one of the entertainers in the amusement park 'Efteling'.
Film and television
The East German stop motion children's television programme Unser Sandmännchen (Our Little Sandman), based on Hans Christian Andersen's Ole Lukøje character and the story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, has been broadcast since 1959, along with a West German version which was discontinued after reunification.
In the 1990s, Nilus the Sandman aired on Anglophone Canadian television.
In the 1970s, Bonne nuit les petits aired on French television. The show featured Nounours, a bear who took care of two toddlers, Nicolas and Pimprenelle. He would arrive on a cloud driven by his friend Sandman (“Le marchand de sable” in French) playing a flute as the sun set, and would only leave once he'd accompanied the children to bed. At the end of every episode, Nounours would say “Bonne nuit les petits” (which means “Good night, little ones”) before Sandman created a light shower of sand, putting the two siblings, Nicolas and Pimprenelle, to sleep. The bear and Sandman would then take their leave on the same cloud, once Nounours had climbed back up the ladder that he'd descended at the beginning of the episode. Here, Sandman has a major role to play, with his flute, driving the cloud, interacting with the other characters from time to time and, most importantly, inducing the children to fall asleep. The show was broadcast nightly at 7:50 pm, and each episode lasted 10 minutes, marking 8 pm as the bed-time when children, duly reassured, could sleep peacefully. It was later reduced to 5 minutes in the 1990s for the reboot series. In francophone Canada, it airs on Ici Radio-Canada Télé immediately before Le Téléjournal.
The Sandman appears in The Smurfs episodes "Darkness Monster" and "Lazy's Nightmare", voiced by Frank Welker.
In 1991, Paul Berry directed a stop-motion short film titled The Sandman based on the short story Der Sandmann by E. T. A. Hoffmann.
In 1998, the Sandman also appears in The Powerpuff Girls, where he appears in the episode "Dream Scheme".
The Sandman appears in The Santa Clause 2 and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, portrayed by Michael Dorn. He is shown to be a member of the Council of Legendary Figures and tends to doze off during meetings, giving the other members cause to wake him up.
The Sandman is supposedly represented as the demon Der Kindestod in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.