Res Humanitariae

This article uses folklore analysis and comparative and descriptive research methods to examine children’s frightening expressions from a contemporary perspective, considering their significance in child-rearing practices and the forms these texts have taken today. The study is based on children’s frightening expressions from the late 20th and early 21st century, taken from the file ‘Children’s Frightening Expressions’ (VDU ER 2304) in the Ethnology and Folklore Manuscript Collection of the Department of Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at Vytautas Magnus University. These are compared with children’s frightening expressions collected from various folklore sources in traditional Lithuanian culture at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. The study revealed that since the second half of the 20th century, changes in traditional lifestyles and child-rearing practices have also altered the nature of frightening expressions. They are used less frequently, the subjects of fear have changed, and they are presented to children in milder forms and are less mythologised. Children’s frightening expressions, which are characteristic of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, reveal themselves to be a continuation of this traditional short form of folklore. This folklore has undergone certain transformations due to changes in living conditions.