TBR's Grimm Tales#11: The Boy Who Learned of Fear

A Tale About the Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was

· A father has two boys. The elder one is hard-working and the younger one is, well, stupid.

· He's so stupid, in fact, that he doesn't understand what people mean when they say they have the creeps or are afraid. Much mockery ensues.

· A sexton (basically a church-dude) offers to teach the boy the creeps, so he takes the boy and gives him the task of ringing the church bell.

· The sexton dresses in white to scare the boy while he's ringing the bell, but things don't go as planned and the boy tosses him down the stairs instead.

· Horrified, the sexton's wife complains about how the boy broke her husband's leg, so the boy's father kicks him out of their village.

· The boy walks along muttering about how he wants to get the creeps so he can see what all the fuss is about.

· One guy tries to take advantage of him by charging him for advice: he tells the boy to sleep with a bunch of corpses on the gallows, but this doesn't faze the kid.

· There's a haunted castle nearby with a ton of treasures, but people keep dying when they try to spend three nights there. Whoever succeeds will wed the king's daughter, who's the most beautiful maiden in the land. Sweet deal if you can survive.

· The boy accepts the challenge and asks for a fire, a lathe, and a carpenter's bench to take in with him.

· Freaky things show up—demonic cats, a bed that runs around with him on it, dismembered but animated corpses, a malevolent old man—but the boy either beats them up or ignores them altogether.

· Boom. He's accomplished his feat. He gets the riches and the maiden. When he's still complaining about not knowing what the creeps are, she pours a bucket ofcold water full of minnows on him so he can finally get the creeps. Now that's love.

· Also, side lesson: don't try scaring kids, because you'll get your leg broken.