TALES THAT TERRIFY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16902, 29 November 1922, Page 3

TALES THAT TERRIFY.

1 •• AKF. CARE WHAT STORIES YO.T TELE YOIT. KIDDIES. Be arefui what fairy i d- - you tell vonr children, for an immeu-Sv amount , ot harm is done every day by moth ; ors innocently tolling their c hildren ; the wrong ki-Y - of storie- . Xo wise parent, oi course. would i v. i’lingly frighten her child by storms 1 oi hobgoblins, demons. or oti:* r horrors. But, these apari. it i quite po'-.blc j lt»s’ what scents to he a harmless tale < -i. to sink into the fiaad or eloped mmd j ot the child as permanently to affect tla whole- of its arte.r-life. Take, for instance, the old tale of tlv Mistletoe Bough. The story tell . •• l ow a beautiful bride in the course of , a game oi hide and seek, hides in ail old oak che>i. which locks upon her, and causes death through mtffocati.m According to many doctors tin- tale has been responsible for more clanstroj'.hobia—*• a nervous ailment particularly distressing to the suflerer—-than any other cause in the world. HOW STORIES AT’FEI T I MEM ( W hat happens i- something like; this. That particular lale,, let us say. is told one evening just before the < children’s bed-time. On most of the children present it , ,due. - no special effect; it is just one way ot passing the Inst ten minutes One story is as good u< another. Bnt oh one nervous child a strong impress'd on of ;,!-ohi..- li-it.ji- i- nwnk . ( hat c-hihl v '« i.l'n . • -i, ~| •’ ilio i- inn- ol the moiu- ni when tin j

bride realises that she is trapped in the chest. The, terrified kiddie looks round : but nobody ebe seems frightened. Then the story is over: the other children are playing about, the grown-ups attending to their business. Nobody else would understand, thinks the kiddie. | 1 can’t tell that I’m frightened—of j nothing. i THE IXDEK-MIM) RKMEMBJM '■•hild goes to bed. and in the the story is still with it. crushine^^ down with the blackness of the idlest Next morning all is well again: tlu. child has " forgotten.” But, says tdiq doctor, she cannot really *‘ forget.” She has only succeeded in her sleen in turning the terror from off her conscious. everyday mind into l«er sub'•.nscious mind. And there it will stick, perhaps for life. The terror of the closed space will., haunt that child through the rest of her life,, and always will she dread the corner, the Tube, the feeling of being ! shut in.” MAY GROW INTO A DISEASE. it may be just a nuisance to her. a j funny feeling that she can’t explain. It may be that it grows into a real disease which poisons her whole life I and sets her apart as unlike other girls. All because she once heard a fairy tale i which no grown-up present realised : might bo bad for her. Thfere are masiy such tales. The i vampire- story of how tlu\ sleeper's blood wa< sucked must have been re'junsible for much human misery; The tale of the beautiful princess who turned into something—was it a werewolf?—lias tainted many a’life. Ti is not every child who can be thus e ffoeted. Ilie tragedy Y that few parents realise that tlieir child may have tlm temperament that can be effected, and that the story which to them seem*. nonsense may permanently injure tie* whole future of their little* one. Tec tlie -wise mother .tbu’kc not bow a bedtime tale affects her. but liov: f ir might affect her child.