I guess everyone does it. You tend to forget that what is common knowledge for you is not necessarily common knowledge for everyone else. I know I’m guilty. In this case, because I am so familiar with the dark undertones present in fairy tales and nursery rhymes, I take for granted that everybody else is likewise familiar. Not everyone pays attention to the actual WORDS of our fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Perhaps most do not.
Even the little songs people use to lull their babies to sleep are the stuff of bloody nightmares, if you really listen to them. Did you know that “Rock-a-bye baby” is actually about crib death? Worldwide this tendency towards the subject matter of death and fear is even more pronounced. (One Italian lullaby likens a baby to a little lamb about to be devoured by a ravening wolf.) Is it because lullabies are a safe outlet, where one can talk about things that are taboo in polite society? Does it provide a psychological outlet for the parent, a way to alleviate unspoken fears? Such is the primary function of the Horror genre, of Horror as entertainment. What, then, could be more natural than for a child to begin its life being warned about the inherent horrors of it, sung to it in the soft voice of a loving mother while safe in her protecting arms?
