Hey everyone, I'm so glad I found this site. I thought I might be going crazy until I found this. I am an anthropology student at UCLA, and I've been studying the games and songs of children. One night I was studying kind of late through some old archival material and I was looking through this study done by an elementary school teacher in the UK who was studying the playground games of his students. Anyway, I saw something weird in one of the pictures. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because I had been reading it for so long, but I got really spooked and suddenly felt like I wanted to go home. I scanned the materials to continue studying later, and the next day, it was still there.
Here is the image I was looking at.
As you can see, at the left side behind the wall is something odd and frankly eerie. Reading the posts on this thread, I finally felt a sense of recognition. I had never found anything like it before. Now that I read this thread, I'm a little worried about the young boy in the picture. I've never bothered to follow up, but the elementary school is Fitchley Park Elementary School in Liverpool. The year is 1951.
The only thing I've ever seen that is similar to this is one children's game I ran across, that is practiced in a small village near the Retezat Forest in Romania since the 1920s. In this game, all of the children line up in a line, and one is appointed the "leader." The leader walks behind the children's backs and lightly taps one. That one is the "Mare Barbat" (tall man). The children then hold their arms out in front of them and the first child closes their eyes and begins walking down the line through the extended arms. The children in line brush the walking child lightly with their arms and hands as if walking through branches and leaves. When the child gets to the "Mare Barbat" that child suddenly grabs them. It usually causes a great fright in the walking child and all those nearby as well, which is fun for them.
It sort of reminded me of this, and I've been looking for more info ever since.
("Lowly")
No comments:
Post a Comment