You might know Grimm's Fairy Tales as the stories that Disney rips off, and adds happy endings to. In fact, I have no idea why you would actually read a child the original versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales. It would give them nightmares. The only reason I can think of doing that would be to teach them that life is not fair, and there's a 99% chance they will die in a very horrible way.
Then there is my Mother. She puts the Grimm Brothers to shame. You wouldn't suspect it. I mean, does this look like an master evil storyteller?
The Story of Little Callie and the Bull (as told to me by my Mother.)
Once, there was a little girl named Callie who helped out on her relatives farm. This was a dairy farm with lots of cows that produced very good milk. In the spring one of the cows gave birth to a baby bull.
(Adrian's note: Ok, that picture is a little too real. I suspect it was more like this.)
(Adrian's note: Ok, that's better.) So little Callie decided to take care of this little baby bull. She combed it's fur. She scratched it's head where it's horns were starting to grow. Bulls like for their heads to be scratched where their horns are growing. It' kind of like a baby teething. Little Callie loved this bull, and took great care in raising him.
One day Little Callie got into the pen to take care of her beloved bull. It was then that the bull violently gored her, and put her up against the pen.
The bull kept goring her, and knocking her around the pen.
Her screams echoed across the farm as her Father ran over to save her. He grabbed a wooden two by four, and proceeded to beat the bull off of Little Callie. But the bull did not want to stop it's violent attack. It kept up it's attack of Little Callie despite the beating it was taking at the hands of Little Callie's Father. Finally, after taking a few shots to the head from the two by four, the bull backed up enough so that Little Callie's Father could pull her from the pen saving her from certain death.
From that day on, no one could enter that bull's pen or go near that bull. The older he got, the bigger and meaner he got. He finally had to be put in a field with no other animals, even other cows.
Eventually he had to be sold as there was no way to approach him, or let him near other animals.
The moral of this story? Things that you raise with love in your heart will eventually try to kill you. Yep, that sounds like a German Fairy Tale to me. Which is funny because my Mom is very German.
But let's talk about the aftermath. I was only six and my sister was only three when my Mom told us this story. My jaw was on the ground, and my sister's jaw was open so wide she looked like she was catching flies. And then it started. The waterworks.
Really, you can't tell a child that kind of story, and not expect it to traumatize them for the rest of their life. I mean, I'm 34, and I still remember this story from when I was six. What does that say?
The Story of Callie and Jenny.
Once upon a time there was a girl named Little Callie who was in the second grade. She had a best friend named Jenny. They would spend all day together in school, and then spend their afternoon and weekends playing. They were the best of friends.
Then one day, out of nowhere, Jenny moved away. Little Callie never saw her best friend ever again, and to this day doesn't know what happened to her. Little Callie had no friends to play with the rest of second grade. She was lonely, and no one would play with her the rest of the year. The end.
The moral of this story? Your best friend(s) will be taken from you, and you won't know why. You will be lonely, and no one will play with you no matter how many Transformers/ G.I. Joe's you have. Also, second grade is seriously going to suck.
(Adrian's note: Really Mom, what were you thinking telling children that kind of story? I was terrified of second grade.) You know what happened after that? You guessed it.
And then there is my Dad. He has a different take on evil story telling. You wouldn't think so. Really, look at this picture:
He looks like a nice enough Dad, but he was also an evil storyteller. One night as he was tucking me into bed I asked him why in the cartoons parents always told their children bedtimes stories, but he never told me any? So he asked me, "Oh, so you want a to hear a bedtime story?"
The Story of Johnny and His Very Bad Son (as told to me by my Father with an evil smile on his face.)
Once upon a time there was a very bad little boy named Adrian. He would come up behind his Daddy while his Daddy was watching the football game and bite him. He was a very bad little boy, as his Daddy was just quietly wanting to watch the football game. His Daddy had done nothing to deserve this kind of treatment.
The story kind of ended there as I was yelling, "No!" the whole time. For being so hurt my Dad kind of had an evil grin his face the whole time he was telling the story.
Moral of this story: Never ask your Dad for a bedtime story if he is a complete smartass.
