How Some Children Played at Slaughtering: Morbid Mischief and Chilling Consequences
What happens when children’s playtime turns into a real-life nightmare? We welcome the precursor of the afterlife, Mr. Death Hades, for a wickedly entertaining discussion on the Brothers Grimm tale, "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering." This spine-tingling story, so grotesque it was deleted from the Grimm collection, reveals how innocent fun can take a dark turn. We'll unravel the morbid events where a child's game ends in actual murder and dive into the bizarre judicial decisions that followed. Brace yourselves for a mix of horror and hilarity as we dissect this unsettling narrative with our macabre guest.
This episode is a replay from 2019-2021; please ignore any announcements during the episode.
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Would children kill other children while playing out what they see?
War games in the backyard with Nerf guns seem harmless. Nowadays, children see violence all around them, whether it is on the news, in movies, or in the very video games they play in their free time. Similar to the 1600s-1800s, children witnessed animal slaughter and executions of criminals in the town square. Can the undeveloped minds of our children be influenced by what they see around them? Could the overabundance of violence in today’s culture be showing itself in unhealthy ways through our children? Perhaps it’d be wise to heed the warning set by this tale.
"How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" encompasses two stories in the first edition of the Grimms' collection (1812). The brothers' decision to withdraw the tales from subsequent editions provides insights into appropriate reading material for children.
How Some Children Played at Slaughtering
Story 1
In a city named Franecker, located in West Friesland (a province of the Netherlands located in the northern part of the country), some young boys and girls between the ages of five and six happened to be playing with one another. They chose one boy to play a butcher, another boy to play was to be a cook, and a third boy was to be a pig.
Then they chose one girl to be a cook and another girl her assistant. The assistant was to catch the blood of the pig in a little bowl so they could make sausages. As agreed, the butcher now fell upon the little boy playing the pig, threw him to the ground, and slit his throat open with a knife, while the assistant cook caught the blood in her little bowl.
A councilman was walking nearby and saw this wretched act. He immediately took the butcher with him and led him into the house of the mayor, who instantly summoned the entire council.
They deliberated about this incident and did not know what they should do to the boy, for they realized it had all been part of a children's game.
One of the councilmen, an old wise man, advised the chief judge to take a beautiful red apple in one hand and a gold coin in the other. Then he was to call the boy and stretch out his hands to him. If the boy took the apple, he was to be set free. If he took the gold coin, he was to be killed.
The judge took the wise man's advice, and the boy grabbed the apple with a laugh. Thus he was set free without any punishment.
Story 2
There once was a father who slaughtered a pig, and his children saw that.
In the afternoon, when they began playing, one child said to the other, "you be the little pig, and I'll be the butcher." He then took a shiny knife and slit his little brother's throat.
Their mother was upstairs in a room bathing another child, and when she heard the cries of her son, she immediately ran downstairs. Upon seeing what had happened, she took the knife out of her son's throat and was so enraged that she stabbed the heart of the other boy, who had been playing the butcher.
Then she quickly ran back to the room to tend to her child in the bathtub, but while she was gone, he had drowned in the tub.
Now the woman became so frightened and desperate that she did not allow the neighbors to comfort her and finally hung herself.
When her husband came back from the fields and saw everything, he became so despondent that he died soon after.
