The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was

Common card · No. 410843

"The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" or "The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear" (German: Märchen von einem, der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen) is a German folktale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales (KHM 4). The tale was also included by Andrew Lang in The Blue Fairy Book (1889). It is classified as Aarne–Thompson index type 326, Fear. It refers to tales of a male protagonist's unsuccessful attempts to learn how to feel fear. This tale type did not appear in any early literary collection but is heavily influenced by the medieval adventure of Sir Lancelot du Lac called The Marvels of Rigomer in which he spends a night in a haunted castle and undergoes almost the same ordeals as the youth.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Ricardo Maragna, Andrew Lang (Editor), H.J. Ford (illustrator), Public domain