The ghost children’s name for the Other Mother is “the Beldam.” This is a reference to John Keats’ 1819 poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (literally, the beautiful lady without mercy). The poem is about a knight who meets a “full beautiful…faery’s child” with “wild” eyes. She takes the knight “to her elfin grot,” where she enchants him, but he dreams of others - “pale kings, and princes too” - who warn him that she has him in her thrall. The M.O. of the Other Mother and the warnings of the ghost children to Coraline about what the Other Mother did to them are echoes of Keats’ poem.
(Source: filmtrivia, via zebablah)
