Tag Archives: possessed doll

The Ritual Game: One Man Hide-and-Seek

Interviewer: Okay so how do you play this game?

Informant: Well as the name suggests you have to do this alone, while everyone is out of the house, preferably. You take an old doll that you don’t like anymore, cut it open and remove all the stuffing. Then fill it up with white rice. Once the doll is totally full of rice, cut a hair from your head and poke it into the heart of the doll’s body. Then take a knife and prick a finger, doesn’t matter which one, and wipe the blood onto the rice protruding from the doll’s back. Once you’ve done that, take a bit of red string and sew up the back of the doll and cut it off with the same knife you used to prick your finger. Once it’s sewn up give it a name, and it has to be a name that no one you know has.

Interviewer: Sounds like you have to be very careful during all this prep work.

Informant: Oh yeah and we’re not even done yet. Actually playing the game is specific too. You then have to take the finished doll to a bathroom, run a shallow bath, and then place the doll in the water. Turn out all the lights in the house, finding a hiding spot and count to ten. You shouldn’t forget to take the knife with you when you go to hide. Say ‘ready or not here I come’ then go back to the doll. Repeat ‘I found you, I found you, I found you’ then ‘you’re the next it, you’re the next it, you’re the next it’ and tie the knife to the doll’s hand. Then go to hide again, it doesn’t have to be in the same place. If you make it to sunrise, you’ve won the game.

Interviewer: Do you get anything out of winning?

Informant: No, I don’t think so. You just get bragging rights.

Interviewer: What happens if you lose?

Informant: The doll kills you, supposedly. But if you need to stop the game, like if the doll finds you, it’s recommended that you always have a glass of salt water prepared to pour on the doll. When you pour the water, shout ‘I win, I win, I win’ then the game is over.

Background: One Man Hide and Seek was part of a film project that she was doing for school. She researched this game but does not remember which sites she learned it from or its origin.

Context: I was interviewing my informant for rituals that she learned about through research and hearsay from others. She was happy to tell me about this one since it resulted in one of her favorite movies that she made.

Thoughts: I severely doubt that the original reason for doing One Man Hide and Seek was just so one could have bragging rights, so it must have been a ritual for something else originally. I did a little digging online and found a site that suggests the ritual was originally posted on a ‘Japanese horror bulletin board.’

Please see “One-Man Hide and Seek / Hide and Seek Alone.” Know Your Meme Accessed March 20, 2020

Ghost stories at Christian camp (Dolly)

INFORMANT: OOH girl I got a ghost story. You’ve probably heard it. I feel like everyone’s heard it.

 

ME: What is it?

 

INFORMANT: The Dolly story.

 

ME: Oh my god yes I have heard it! Tell me your version.

 

INFORMANT: Okay so according to the story there was once this little girl who went to the carnival and played some carnival games. They were those carnival games where you can like win stuff, ya know? So anyway this little brat played the game and lost and pitched a fit, so the carnival guy gave her this beat ass doll that only had two fingers and I guess she was like “whatever it’s cute” and took it home and named it Dolly. So she started noticing that her doll kept ending up in different places than the places she would leave it, and she asked her parents if they had been moving her doll around and they said no. The one time she came home and Dolly had not only moved but also had a knife in her hand. I guess she was an idiot or something because she didn’t think this was weird and kept the doll. Then one day her mom went missing and no one knew where she went. The girl went to the doll for comfort and noticed that it had gained a finger. The next day, while she was at school, her dad went missing. Once again, Dolly had gained a finger. The next day she came home from school early and walked in and found Dolly standing over the house keeper with a bloody knife. When she took the knife from Dolly she noticed that she had gained another finger. This was the moment when she realized that Dolly gained a finger every time she killed someone and that her parents weren’t missing. They were killed by Dolly.

 

Background

The informant learned this ghost story at Christian camp from one of her friends. She said that they often exchanged ghost stories right before going to sleep for fun, even though it was really scary. This story was her favorite one to tell because she thought it was so creepy. She also thinks that this story is the reason she now has a strange fear of dolls.

 

Context

The informant is a college student at the university and grew up in Dallas, Texas.

 

Thoughts

The idea that a doll could be possessed is a common theme in folklore. This perversion of something that typically symbolizes childhood is exceptionally scary in nature because childhood is suppose to be comforting. It’s scary to think that even the things we might turn to for comfort could also be evil. This type of scary story can also be seen in horror stories about haunted houses or evil stepmothers. It is terrifying to think that the things that should keep us safe could actually be the things putting us in danger. If you can’t turn to your childhood toy, your house, or your mother for comfort, then what can you do? Additionally, because the girl received the cursed doll after she misbehaved, it could have also been a way to scare children into behaving correctly and encourage them to not act so spoiled.