Informative Chant                                                                                                  Rachel Ludwikowski

“Olly Olly Oxen Free”                                                                                                            Suffern, NY

July 2009

Informant Data:

Rachel Ludwikowski was born in Suffern New York on June 22, 1999. She has one younger brother. Her nine cousins lived in the same town as her, and are on her mom’s side. The age gap between the youngest cousin and oldest is 7 years. Her family would have dinner together every Sunday. The kids were always encouraged to play outside in the summer. Her parents emphasized the importance of being close with her cousins and therefore she was very close to them. Rachel is currently a sophomore at Dartmouth college, studying economics. Her parents still live in Suffern, but her cousins moved to Massachusetts. They still see each other as much as possible, especially on holidays.

Contextual Data:

Rachel shared this story as part of a Folklore collection for Russian 13. When Rachel was younger, her cousins would go over to her house every Sunday for dinner. This was one of Rachel’s favorite days of the week, because she loved to play with her cousins. Rachel only has one brother, so this allowed her to play with a bigger group. She and her cousins would play backyard games while the parents prepared dinner. Rachel’s favorite game was man hunt. To play manhunt, the eldest cousin, Mary, would divide up the other children into two even teams. One team was considered “it” and the other team would go hide. The goal of the hiding team was to get to a designated base without being tagged. If you get tagged, you go to jail. To get out of jail, one member of your team needs to tag you. The “it” team wins by having everyone in jail and the hiding team wins by having everyone get to the base. When a member of the hiding team would get to the base, they would say the chant described below. The chant was used to let the “it” team know who was at the base and as a bragging right. Rachel loved to scream the chant because it meant her team was winning and she had done her part. This game was way for the children to let out their energy before dinner.

Item:

To let the “it” team know that that a member of the hiding team had made it to the base, that member would shout, “Olly Olly Oxen Free”. The person yelling made sure to scream it very loud, so that every child was aware that they had made it to the base.

Informant’s Comments: Rachel commented about how she loved to be the first person on her team to say the chant.

Collector’s Comments: I found it interesting that I had also used this chant, but for a different game. The chant had the same purpose (to let the other team know you had made it to the base). When I did some research, I found that it has been used in many games, such as hide and seek, capture the flag, and kick the can.

Collector’s Name: Isabelle Giordano

Isabelle Giordano 20

Dartmouth College

Russian 13.02

Spring Term 2019