Dead Mother

The Dead Mother is a scary story for kids. It is based on an old Russian folktale. A version of this story appeared in the book Short and Shivery.

Many years ago, in a small village in Russia, there was a husband and wife who lived happily together. The couple were deeply in love and they were the envy of all their neighbors. Soon afte rthey married, the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy baby boy. However, during the childbirth, something went wrong and the mother died.

Her husband was devastated and he moaned and wept for days afterwards. He didn’t know how he was going to take care of the baby on his own, so he hired an old woman to look after it. But then, things began to get strange.

The baby cried all day long and refused to eat any food. Nothing the old woman did would comfort the crying child. However, during the night, the baby would suddenly get quiet and fall asleep, silently and peacefully.

The baby’s behavior was unnatural and the old woman became very worried. To get to the bottom of the mystery, she decided to stay awake all night and keep watch.

Just after midnight, she heard a faint creak as the front door quietly opened and soft footsteps made their way to the baby’s cradle. The old woman peeked through the doorway and saw something that filled her with fright.

The dead mother was standing there in the darkness, dressed in the same clothes in which she had been buried. She was kneeling beside the cradle and breast-feeding the baby.

The old woman let out a scream and woke the baby’s father who came running. At that moment, the dead mother stood up, gazed sadly at the little baby and then floated out of the room without a sound.

The old woman and the husband just stood there for a minute, shocked and horrfied by what they had seen. Then, the husband reached into the cradle and let out a cry of anguish when he discovered that the baby was dead.