My grandmother told me this story.

There was an old woman who sat by the river and cried. Every day.

“Old woman, why are you crying?” a traveler asked.

“I’m afraid that someday I might get married, and I might have children, and they might play by the river and fall in and drown.”

Sounds pretty silly. While bad things can and DO happen, making up stories to scare ourselves is even sillier.

I still love this story.