Lullaby and Be Terrified??

Fairy tales have been always been a part of our culture.  Who hasn't heard about Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, and Robin Hood?  But have you ever heard of Heinrich Hoffman's 1845 bedtime classic Struwwelpeter?  And I thought Brothers Grimm was scary!

I remember being at a Girl Scouts meeting where we were learning about Germany.  The guest speaker, a holocaust survivor, decided to regale us with a fairy tale from her homeland.  ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYING!  This particular story was about a child that lacked proper hygiene and refused to cut their nails.  Ultimately someone graphically cuts their fingers off.  Yep.  I am pretty sure I quit Girl Scouts shortly after that.
 


That's what little girls get for playing with boys!

 Here are some other morals found within the book: A girl plays with matches and burns to death. Another child who won't stop sucking his thumb has them cut off. A boy refuses to eat his soup and starves to death. But the violence in Struwwelpeter is not unusual for children's books from the early nineteenth century. 

Chapter 14 of Consumer Behavior describes how myths function in a culture.  I believe these stories  provided both a sociological and psychological function for the culture of that time period.  These stories definitely involve binary opposition by assuring young readers that if they don't obey their parents something really AWFUL will happen to them. 




Cry your eyes out!

Personally, I am glad that our culture has "softened" and we don't feel the need to frighten our children into behaving.  Believe me, telling them that if they don't behave then their electronics get taken away is scary enough.

Sweet dreams!



Paramount lesson of firearm safety:
 Evil rabbits will steal your guns if you're negligent...