There’s a story called the Die Guschger Sennenpuppe. A Senn is like the people who tend to the fields Gusgher is the area where I’m from and puppe is doll… This is all in dialect though. This is like specifically from my area. So the Guschg is an alp in property of the town of Shawn where the shepherd’s and the alpine hill folk in there free time had fun. One day the made a doll out of old rags. She was life sized and the hill folk would speak to her and treat her like a real human. They would place her at the dinner table and feed her. She would even have to tolerate punches and being stabbed. Shortly before the Transhumans, which is a ritual of bringing cows down from the alps the doll was sat at the table and suddenly started to talk. All of the people that were working on the alps were so scared and they could barely contain themselves. The doll said “All of you except for one are allowed to go down the alp and leave with the cattle, but one of you has to stay with me” and she pointed to one shepherd and he was forced to stay. As the rest of the shepherds looked back from Valorsch, one more time, they saw the skin of the shepherd that stayed behind, stretched over the roof of the alp hut. Next to it sat the doll, laughing.
- Where did you first hear this story?
At school and at campfires, this is our folklore so we would just hear these stories. The first time I heard this was probably when I was in kindergarten.
My Thoughts
There’s a ton of scary stories about living dolls. Usually they deal with the life of a demon manifesting itself in the body of a doll. This however makes no mention of a demon. I am also slightly off put by the fact that as a kindergartner you would hear this story. This to me is like letting a five year old watch Saw.