[the guy who be short]

From On Fairy-Stories:

The beauty and horror of The Juniper Tree (Von dem Machandelbloom), with its exquisite and tragic beginning, the abominable cannibal stew, the gruesome bones, the gay and vengeful bird-spirit coming out of a mist that rose from the tree, has remained with me since childhood; and yet always the chief flavour of that tale lingering in the memory was not beauty or horror, but distance and a great abyss of time, not measurable even by twe tusend Johr. Without the stew and the bones--which children are now too often spared in mollified versions of Grimm*--that vision would largely have been lost.

*They should not be spared it - unless they are spared the whole story until their digestions are stronger.

On callow, lumpish, and selfish youth peril, sorrow, and the shadow of death can bestow dignity and even sometimes wisdom.

Presumably the kind of wisdom that says, "Oi, you! Don't fancy your sister."

So children should be introduced to "adult" subject matter - if they're old enough to handle it.