It wouldn’t be Halloween without something Grimm, and so for my penultimate tale in my 13 Nights of Halloween I offer you “Märchen von einem, der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen” or “The The Story of a Young Man Who Went Forth to Learn Fear.” This tale was translated in 1889 by Andrew Lang to be included in his famous Blue Fairy Book. It’s about a young man who is too stupid to know fear, and his greatest wish is to learn to shudder.
Darkly funny, gory, and deeply weird, this is the kind of story that most grownups don’t think is appropriate for children these days. But I say tell the kids scary stories! They can handle a lot more than we give them credit for, and fictional peril helps build the kind of resilience that will make someone stronger when the troubles of real life come to pass.