Traditional Threats and Threatening Figures in Childhood

Traditional modes of controlling the behaviour of young children have received surprisingly little attention by folklorists, anthropologists, and linguists worldwide. The relatively few available studies were mainly undertaken in western European countries and in North America. One of the more extensive investigations of these social controls in an Englishspeaking region was carried out in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1960s (Widdowson, 1977). The present paper revisits and updates that study, summarises its essential findings, and sets them in their wider international context, with the aim of arousing interest in and further exploration of this neglected topic.