Large Fierce Mammal

Hop o’ My Thumb fools the Ogre into killing his own daughters. — Gustave Dore, Les Contes de Perrault, 1862

Hard times bring some to self-justify the most heinous of acts. A few even pre-position themselves for it as I have chronicled in the matter of a young technician I was once called upon to mentor:

“… in the midst of the long hot summer of 1981 the Halifax Police Department went on strike and night time in that city was a war zone. Anyone involved in any sort of security service was working round the clock, and in the course of the mayhem, a conversation occurred between my young friend and me about how thin a veneer civilization actually is. It was as we spoke on the subject that day that he revealed something of himself to me – that faced with not just a police strike, but a complete breakdown in all systems of government, law, order, and economy; removed of his access to work that might earn him an income as Canadians have come to know it, he would stalk and prey upon other people. He would take what they had as his own, eat their food, and if they had none then their pets, and if they had none of those, then he would eat them. It was clear to me that he had given much thought to this agenda, and revealed it to me with complete sincerity, clarity, and sobriety.

“I applauded his candour, and silently added him to my list of those who are to be killed on sight should the shit hit the fan as he described. Friendship, after all, can only be carried so far.” ~ Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 20: An Aside About Cannibalism

Lore and legend abounds with tales of parents abandoning their children in forests as an alternative to watching them starve, and the apparently exceptional probability of the waifs encountering cannibal witches and man-eating ogres along the way. The work of grisly art that tops this very piece is one of the eleven Gustave Doré illustrations for Charles Perrault’s Le petit Poucet (Hop o’ My Thumb) as they appeared in the 1862 edition of Les Contes de Perrault (see HERE for more samples and a synopsis).

What we now refer to as “fairy tales” were once lessons in morality and good behaviour, with all the subtlety of a stout and well delivered boot — a delivery I personally admire, being as I am old enough to remember when a “carbon footprint” was something you got from being kicked in the ass by a coal miner.

More on this another day. For now, pour yourself a flagon of something that goes well with children and enjoy the next ten and a half minutes in the company of Dr. Emily Zarka in this snippet from the PBS online series Monstrum.