Witches And Other Night Fears by Charles Lamb

A wistful, humorous essay that revisits the narrator’s childhood terrors — witches, ghosts, and the shapes the night seemed to take — showing how a lively imagination and commonplace sounds or shadows could be magnified into fearful presences; through personal anecdotes and gentle reflection it balances comic self-awareness with sympathy for the anxious child and considers how adulthood gradually dispels those night fears while leaving their memory intact.