A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or arousing his sadistic impulses. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, well? some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy stories. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.?

为反对童话而作出的一项控诉是童话通过惊吓孩子或引起残酷的冲动来损害孩子.为了证明后者,一个人必须在一次受控制的实验中表明读过童话故事的孩子比那些没读过的孩子对残酷更感到抱歉.对于害怕,我认为,有一些孩子由于童话故事而感到极度恐惧的例子.然而,这常常是由于孩子曾听过这个故事引起的.孩子对重复的故事的熟悉把恐惧转化为一种曾面对过的和已经掌握了恐惧的愉悦.