Tag Archives: black eye

Black Eyed Children

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Boat Mechanic
Residence: Glendale, AZ
Language: English

Story:

“I believe they’re called the black eyed children. Its a set of two or three kids or however many. One of them will walk up to you and they’ll as you for like food or to play with them. If you oblige, they’ll be happy, but the second day another set will show up and be really mean to you, super nasty. If you don’t be nice to them still, they’ll mess with you and be angry and stuff” 

Context: The informant heard this legend from high school friends around the age 15-16. He assumed this was a Native American legend because he heard it from his Native friends while travelling to the reservation in New Mexico.

Analysis: The black eyed children are a common urban legend in America. They signify an innocence that has been twisted for evil intentions. They are often described to be children or teenagers with black eyes and an older sounding voice. For my informant, this legend seems to be a warning against the children. A little different from the most popular legend, this one suggests for the informant to always be nice to the black eyed children. The general fear of the children comes from not knowing their intentions. 

In regards to the origins of this legend, the story of the black eyed children stems from an account of them written by a journalist in 1996. As this post spread, more and more stories popped up, claiming to have encountered the children. Because the informant heard this story from his Native American friends on the way to the reservation in New Mexico, he assumed it to be their local folklore. His friends were likely sharing spooky stories on the drive for entertainment purposes, and this story was big at the time since Creepypasta was still very popular. This story had also been big on Creepypasta since that’s where I heard this legend from myself. Notably, Irish changelings and Native American groups around California’s Lake Tahoe and Nevada’s Pyramid Lake with legends of evil water baby spirits are the most similar examples of traditional folklore to the contemporary legend of the black eyed children. All of these legends stay consistent with taking advantage of people’s desire to care for or help someone smaller or younger than themselves, regardless of their intentions. 

Hard Boiled Egg Black Eye

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/19
Primary Language: English

IN: When I was little, I fell up some stairs when I was trying to like, race up on hands an knees or something. I hit my face really hard, like thats why I have this scar on my eyebrow here. Anyways, I got this like really, really bad blackeye. And my grandma would take an egg, boil it to be like hard boiled, and then wrap in in a cloth and press it to my eye. And I remember her and my parents telling me it was sucking out all of the bad stuff. Like, the bad energy or something. Like she wouldn’t let me eat it after either, which I was pretty sad about most of the time. Like it was because of the bad energy that I couldn’t eat it.

I looked it up and it just says that like, it’s an actual thing people do, but like I guess it’s just the warmth that’s supposed to help you. But like I clearly remember my parents telling me it was sucking out the bad stuff, just bad evil energy and blackness from my eye.

Context: I met the informant at lunch and asked about any folk remedies her grandmother used when she was little.

Background: The informant is a second year student at USC who is Chinese-American, but her parents grew up in Vietnam. Her grandmother used a lot of folk medicine growing up, and this was a method used to treat her black eye.

Analysis: I found this really interesting because at the core it could be a more scientifically backed treatment if you approach it from the “heat-healing” perspective of increasing bloodflow in the area to alleviate the bruise. However, the informant was very adament that it was about the evil blackness for her grandmother, and that it was likely something she learned from her mother before her.