Games You Shouldn’t Play After Dark: Nine Invitations to the Unknown

Number 9.

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board For this game, someone lies on the floor, eyes closed, arms at their sides or crossed at their chest, while others kneel around them.

The others tuck their fingers beneath the person's body.

Ready? One of them whispers.

The group counts to three and try to lift.

The first attempt often goes nowhere.

Then they all chant together.

In the most familiar version, the words are simple.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board.

The person on the floor is told to stay perfectly still.

Those around them keep their eyes on them, fingers pressed beneath their body, waiting for the count.

The room gets quieter, the words grow softer, then everyone lifts together For a second, the person seems to rise with almost no effort at all The rhyme makes the game sound like a spell, and some versions add a ghost story The person on the floor closes their eyes and goes still, while the others whisper something like, She's dead now.

She's cold as stone.

She can't hear us.

Then they begin, light as a feather, stiff as a board.

There isn't one fixed script.

The words change from group to group, but the idea is the same.

A very similar scene to this appears in Samuel Pepys's diary.

On July 31, 1665, Samuel Pepys recorded a conversation with a man he called Mr. Brisbane, who told him about four young girls in Bordeaux, France.

They had knelt around a boy, putting only one finger each under the boy, and whispered a rhyme from one to the next.

In Samuel's translation, the words they used were this, "'Here lies a dead body, stiff as a stick, cold as marble, light as a spirit.

Rise in the name of Jesus Christ.'" Mr. Brisband said he watched the girls lift the boy in the air.

When he wondered whether the boy was helping or whether some trick was involved, he had them try again on a household cook who was a large, strong man.

He said they lifted him, too.