Children’s game/rhyme

Crack an egg on your head and the yolk runs down (x2)

Spiders crawling up your back, they bite you, they bite you, the blood runs down (x2)

Stab a knife in your back and the blood rolls down (x2)

Cool breeze

Tight squeeze

Now you’ve got the chillies

Her older sister taught this rhyme to her when she was eleven. Her sister would start to give her a back rub and then occasionally would start speaking this rhyme. Her sister meant to make it scare her in the end but her sister had learned it as a fun game to play with friends. One person would put their hands on another person’s back and then slowly recite this rhyme, imitating each word with an action. So you would imitate cracking an egg on that person’s head or blow a cold breeze on the person’s neck. The end result was to give someone Goosebumps and the chills. Kyrsti believed that this game was meant to just be a silly way of scaring a younger child or just having some fun with friends.

Kyrsti described how each of the imitated motions are meant to create visuals in the person’s mind. Because each of the phrases are frightening, the rhyme is meant to evoke fear. Kyrsti described that she experienced this fear when she was younger as a recipient of the rhyme. As she got older, however, she did this game on younger kids, passing along the tradition. She believes that the game itself is not meant to be overtly violent, but considering the words and phrases, she does believe it was meant to introduce her to a little bit more graphic things in life. She also thinks that this is a rhyme that is passed down by family members, who in a sense, by saying this rhyme and performing it on their younger siblings, is trying to maintain or show some sort of dominance over their younger sibling.

While I agree that the rhyme is meant to open up new ideas towards “violence” for kids around Kyrsti’s age back then, I do not agree that this was meant to be used to show dominance. I think it was simply just used in order to slightly scare a child and yet at the same time entertain them. I have heard this rhyme many times, and in my middle school is was very prevalent. However, we never found it to be frightening and everyone I knew who did this found it completely amusing. I believe it is here the distinction is made. Depending on the person who is the recipient, it is up to that person to determine whether they think the rhyme is harmless or actually causes some sort of distress.