Hello everyone! This is Casimir with The Skald’s Circle again. Today we’ll be talking about fear and what we fear.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
~H. P. Lovecraft
Take this moment to think about all of the most memorable stories, myths, and folktales that you know of. Of those folktales, myths, and stories, I am certain that for most of you, the stories that stand out have a monster, ghost, death, the underworld, the unknown, or something else that is a common thing that is feared. Why is that? Why do we gravitate towards what we fear in our stories? Is it a way to remind us to be on our guard, a teaching moment if you would, lest we end up on the wrong side of the story? Maybe, it’s something different, a collective desire to revere what we fear. There are multiple takes on why we are drawn toward what we fear. Oddly enough, according to a paper by David Boudinot, “there is some supportive evidence from educators and sociologists which show fear and violence in folk tales contributing to a safer and more educated society.”
Throughout human history, we have used stories to teach. As someone who studied education, stories have taught more than all of our teachers combined. Throughout our history, we have always sought to teach ourselves, our young, our families, that there are things to fear. Fear is healthy, there is no survival instinct. Fear should teach before pain. So, in our stories, in roundabout ways through magic, monsters, ghosts, and other such things we’ve been taught to fear certain things that we understand today to be dangerous for, well, logical reasons. Forests, full of beasts looking to crunch our bones. Water with spirits and monsters looking to sink our boats and drown us. Graveyards reminding us of death, constantly lurking around the corner. Our stories have taught us to be careful. Don’t trust the traveler out on the road because he could be a wolf (or bandit, robber, murderer), be careful in the dark because who knows what (or who) you could bump into, or fall into.
I love dark stories as much as I enjoy horror movies. There’s something tantalizing and exhilarating about feeling fear, horror, terror, and unease in a completely safe environment. We learn what we fear, but we feel empowered because we know we are safe. These horror stories teach us that we can bring light to the dark, and at least understand, if not defeat that which we fear.
I hope you have enjoyed our discussion of mythology, folklore, and history