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Comment by alehul | Hacker News Reader

Tangentially related here, but I think it's another interesting dichotomy of children across cultures (and how parents deal with them).

I can't remember where from, but I heard a fascinating take on how countries in Europe, with predatory animals and other dangers outside the village, would cultivate myths of things like werewolves, vampires, and other beasts that would kill/maul/bite you. This prevented children from wandering too far.

Meanwhile, in Japan (where there's very few predators to be afraid of), the myths are much more wholesome [1]. There's spirits that wash beans, lick oil, follow you around, and so forth, but few/no myths of the dangerous creatures you'd find documented in Europe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_fr...

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Another counter-example to the claim that "there are few/no myths of dangerous (Japanese) creatures:

"Kappa have been used to warn children of the dangers lurking in rivers and lakes, as kappa have been often said to try to lure people to water and pull them in. Even today, signs warning about kappa appear by bodies of water in some Japanese towns and villages."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_(folklore)

That still fits with the general theme though: myths are designed to warn children about danger - in this case, drowning.

In Japan you have Namahage in the north. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namahage And you have "oni" (demons) everywhere else in the folkore too (see Momotarou's story for example).

There are plenty of dangerous mythical characters too in Japan, ghosts, spirits and non-humans creatures, I am not sure where you got the idea that there's less than anywhere else in the world.

My favorite is the "akaname", a youkai that licks the filth of uncleaned bathrooms leaving the place clean. However its saliva is poisonous and so if you don't clean your bathroom properly, you can succumb to sickness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaname

Pagan Europe used to be more diverse before Christianity came over.

Just let's take Slavic folklore of Central/Eastern Europe with creatures like Baba Yaga (forest), Poludnitsa (summer fields, noon time heatstrokes), Rusalka (water), Vodnik (water) lot of fire and swamp daemons - everything which was considered harmful for kids.

These remains are still part of children education mostly with literature, rituals from pagan times and of course grand parents passing these stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_folklore

I wish American “scientists” stop misleading people. The amount of “scientific” nonsense I heard is stunning. Growing up in the culture, I do not recall a single story where Rusalka was threatening to humans. Rusalkas are beautiful young women with fishtails living in seas, lakes, etc. Vodyanoi, -not Vodnik -, a male creature living in swamps, may be. Though in a famous animated cartoon, Vodyanoi was a very kind creature dreaming about flying https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f3VxRhYbqiM. Baba Yaga, an old cranky woman, who lived in a forest in a house which stood on chicken feet, certainly. But in the same cartoon Baba Yaga was quite attractive too. In Russian mythology/ fairytales there have been a plenty of creatures to scary kids.

India has plenty of things roaming around that can kill you, but I don’t remember hearing an abundance of stories about vague spirits that can kill me. Tigers and leopards and snakes are scary enough on their own.

I remember a number of stories involving vague spirits. This was a long time ago, and I have forgotten quite a bit as I immigrated to the west when I was very young.. but at least one of them sticks with me:

It was a story about a demon that would hang in trees late at night, and if you were to walk under the tree the demon would drop down and latch onto your shoulders, and then eat you.

There was a mechanic in the mythology that involved telling stories with cliffhanger endings, or guessing the ending - the details are lost to me now.

All I know is that as a young child walking around at night, my pace would quicken when going under large trees. Those solemn rural nights, under the large jackfruit trees in the moonlight, the wind a steady whisper - you could almost get a glimpse of the demon's gleaming teeth in your mind's eye - inspiring a foreboding sort of solitude, a primal fear.

I do miss it at times.

See my dad just told me snakes and scorpions would fall out of the trees, and that they were particularly attracted to kids who were being naughty. . .

Have you seen the Japanese hell? http://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2014/03/02/jigoku-japanese-hell...

The Japanese have like a pantheon of oni, ayakashi, etc. A lot of old Japanese art is honestly pretty freaky - almost completely opposite to the cute style that permeates Japan's pop culture today.

Interesting idea, not sure whether there's any similar anthropology theory.

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