black ribbon

Do you know the story about the girl who always wears a black ribbon around her neck? Well in the story goes, in short, this boy falls in love with this girl and she falls in love with him. The girl always has a black ribbon tied around her neck, this bugs the boy and he always asks her why she has the ribbon tied around her neck. She always just smiles and refuses to tell him. Finally, after they are married the boy gets so curious that one night when the girl is sleeping, (there is another version where the girl gets sick and tells the boy to remove the ribbon), the boy goes into the room and removes the ribbon around his wife's neck. As he does she wakes up with a sad look on her face and says he shouldnt have done that, and her head falls off, killing her.

This story has stuck with me since I was little, and I'm not or wasn't sure why because I'd only heard the story once. But now I can put aspects of it into my life and make connections with the story.
For example, I have always loved the imagry of the black ribbon. Its just a pretty and simple image. Actually I wear a black ribbon around my neck because of the story. The black ribbon to me means, keeping secrets to protect myself. Unlike the girl, my head will not fall off if my ribbon is rememoved, nothing will happen actually. But the ribbon reminds me that I have to be careful with what I put out there or they could kill me just like the boy killed the girl he loved.