A cautionary tale is a traditional story told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger. Story has several different meanings as outlined below. ... For the Nelly Furtado album, see Folklore (album). ...

There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. Then, the narrative itself is told: someone disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act. The violator then comes to an unpleasant fate, which is frequently related in large and grisly detail. A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) relating to any area of human activity or social custom declared as sacred and forbidden; breaking of the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. ...

Cautionary tales are ubiquitous in popular culture, so much so that those who are aware of this conventional narrative framework will find them often. Many urban legends are framed as cautionary tales; from the lover's lane haunted by a hook-handed murderer to the tale of a man who shot a cactus for fun only to die when the plant toppled onto him. Like horror fiction generally, the cautionary tale exhibits an ambivalent attitude towards social taboos. The narrator of a cautionary tale is momentarily excused from the ordinary demands of etiquette that discourages the use of gruesome or disgusting imagery. The narrator gets an exemption, though, because the tale serves to reinforce some other social taboo. Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in any given society. ... Urban legends are a kind of folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them (see rumor). ... Genera Many, see text A cactus (plural, cacti or cactuses) is a type of (usually) succulent plant belonging to the dicotyledonous flowering plant family, Cactaceae. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any media intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the reader. ... Etiquette is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm. ...

Those whose job it is to enforce conformity therefore frequently resort to cautionary tales. Social guidance films such as Boys Beware or Reefer Madness are deliberately patterned after traditional cautionary tales, as were the notorious driver education films of the 1960s, or military films about syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. The framework of the cautionary tale became a cliché in the slasher films of the 1980s, in which adolescents who had sex, drank alcoholic beverages, or smoked marijuana inevitably ended up as the victims of the serial killer villain. Some films, such as Gremlins, satirized this framework by imposing very arbitrary rules whose violation results in horrendous consequences for the community. "Klaatu barada nikto" in The Day the Earth Stood Still is another example. In psychology, conformity is the degree to which members of a group will change their behavior, views and attitudes to fit the views of the group. ... Social guidance films constitute a genre of films attempting to guide children and adults to behave in certain ways. ... Boys Beware is a social guidance film released through Sid Davis Productions. ... Reefer Madness is the title of a 1936 film about cannabis, two books, a 2004 off-Broadway musical satirizing the original film (itself made into a television movie in 2005), a song by Hawkwind, and a one-off strip in the comic anthology 2000 AD. // 1936 movie Reefer Madness, originally... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... Depression-era U.S. poster advocating early syphilis treatment Syphilis (historically called lues) is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. ... Sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), also known as sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs), are diseases that are commonly transmitted between partners through some form of sexual activity, most commonly vaginal intercourse, oral sex, or anal sex. ... A cliché (from French cliché, stereotype) originally was a printing term for a semi-permanently assembled piece of type which could easily be inserted into the document being printed. ... The slasher film is a sub-genre of the horror genre. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... A separate article is about the punk band called The Adolescents. ... The missionary position is the most common position for sexual intercourse in humans The cowgirl sex position is a good position for kissing, caressing, and embracing of the paramour The Doggy position is thus named because canines as well as most other mammals use this position. ... Bottles of cachaça, a Brazilian alcoholic beverage. ... Cannabis is a plant also known as Cannabis sativa, hemp, or marijuana. ... Serial killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually unknown to them beforehand. ... A stereotypical villain. ... Gremlins is a 1984 movie directed by Joe Dante. ... Film poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 science fiction film which tells the story of a humanoid spaceman who comes to Earth to convince its leaders to learn how to live in peace. ... Film poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 science fiction film which tells the story of a humanoid spaceman who comes to Earth to convince its leaders to learn how to live in peace. ...

On the other hand, in the adolescent culture of the United States, for more than a hundred years the traditional cautionary tale gave rise to the phenomenon of legend tripping, in which a cautionary tale is turned into the basis of a dare that invites the hearer to test the taboo by breaking it. Legend tripping, in the folklore of the United States, is a name recently bestowed by folklorists and anthropologists on an adolescent rite of passage in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly...

The genre of the cautionary tale has been satirized by many writers. Hilaire Belloc in his Cautionary Tales for Children, presented such moral exemplars as "Jim, Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion", and "Matilda, Who told lies, and was Burned to Death". Lewis Carroll, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, says that Alice Photograph of Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (July 27, 1870 - July 16, 1953) was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. ... Photograph of Lewis Carroll taken by himself, with assistance Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was a British author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer. ... John Tenniels illustration for A Mad Tea-Party, 1865 Alices Adventures in Wonderland is a work of childrens literature by the British mathematician and author Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. ...

had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

In The Complete Tribune Printer, Eugene Field gave cautionary tales an ironic inversion, as in The Gun: Eugene Field, American writer Eugene Field (September 2, 1850 - November 4, 1895) American writer, best known for poetry for children and for humorous essays. ...

This is a gun. Is the Gun loaded? Really, I do not know. Let us Find out. Put the Gun on the table, and you, Susie, blow down one barrel while you, Charlie, blow down the other. Bang! Yes, it was loaded. Run quick, Jennie, and pick up Susie's head and Charlies lower Jaw before the Nasty Blood gets over the New carpet.