Many of these fears stem from the terrors that grip us as children: fear of death, the dark, disease. As we grow older these may take on new masks, but they continue to haunt us.
As a child, I was afraid of the dark and much more. My maternal grandmother, a sweet old lady with a wicked sense of humor, fed those fears with stories rooted in her German/Irish heritage, fragments of unexpurgated Grimm enlivened by a wild Irish imaginative strain. There were children devoured by wild animals, murdered, dismembered and eaten (sometimes unwittingly) by their parents and other edifying tales. My sister and I were both terrified and fascinated by these stories.
A modified version of Der Struwwelpeter was one of her favorites.
If he was that hard on thumbsuckers, imagine how he might have treated masturbators.
My grandmother's family didn't come from the region of Germany where the Krampus is celebrated at Christmas. And that's a good thing. My older brother made my Christmases miserable enough by threatening that he'd tell Santa about my misdeeds so that I would receive only a lump of coal or a switch and a rotten potato in my stocking.
If I had been told that a horned, hairy creature would seize me and drag me off to Hell for my minor transgressions, I might never have gotten out of bed on Christmas morning.
P.
