In a Big Black Town There Was a Big Black House Mare Kõiva It was in the 50s. I was visiting my relatives in South Estonia. The village people used to gather at their place and tell stories to each other. They were worried and said that in Moscow there was a mechanical man made of iron walking around the Kremlin. Inside it there was a nuclear bomb and if it blew up, nothing would be left of the Earth. They were all elderly people and did not think about how a child would react to it. I was very very scared. (A veterinary doctor, age 48.) The article introduces horror stories of Estonian children and bring some examples of the legends popular in the 40s, 50s and 60s that have influenced children's repertoire. Horror stories are as good and consistent part of the tradition of children's lore as anecdotes. Nowadays the tradition of Estonian children's thrillers and horrors consists of stories of different origin and structure. Besides playful, startling, surprising and absurd stories, the term includes also narratives (of the occasions) which have been believed and taken seriously both by children and adults. Classification of Horror Stories 1. Horror stories belonging to classical folklore and their moderni-zations ("The Man with a Wooden/Golden Leg", "The Corpse-Eater" ATh 363, etc.). During the past hundred years several versions of the story of a man with a wooden or golden leg have been recorded in Estonia. The man asks his leg to be put into his grave with him, and if it is not done so, he comes to claim it later. The scenery and circumstances of the modern variants of the stories have also been modernized - the corpse-eater, for example, rides to the graveyard in a taxi. The story itself is much shorter and more naïve, but the essence has remained the same. The wife of a man died. It was said that the woman had had golden hands. The man thought that if she had golden hands, he would cut off one of them. And so he did. Then he went to the cemetery and buried the woman. Night was already falling when he drove back home. Suddenly he heard, "Give my hand back!" The man was frightened, whipped his horse and drove on quicker. When he was very close to his house he suddenly heard from behind his back, "Give my golden hand back to me!" At that moment he felt the hand move under his coat. - This is a horror story. It has to be told in a dark room. The end of it should be told in a low voice and sedately. During the sentence "felt the hand move under his coat" the narrator grabs someone else and speaks up. (RKM II 325, 80/1 (15) < Tartu - Girl, age 13 (1976).) Estonian schoolchildren's lore includes a fair number of traditional religious narratives about the misfortunes of someone who goes to the cemetery in order to