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Classic Archive Merged: Raggedly Ann

My girlfriends house- especially the hall/stairway leading upstairs, living room, and adjacent dining room- is FILLED with creepy dolls. Her mom collects them- and rooms are wall-to-wall FULL of them. I get seriously creeped out at night.
Oddly, the kitchen, which has NO dolls, creeps me out the worst. Something's wrong with that house.

Doesn't help that once I saw/heard movement in a defiently empty room, and my girlfriend has seen/heard plenty of stuff.
 
hi i'm mia. :)

just wanted to add that this wouldn't be the first case of a possessed oversized raggedy-ann doll.

the warrens in connecticut, USA keep one named "annabelle" locked in a glass case in their occult museum. supposedly, it terrorized a family during the 70's and even slashed someone with a knife! (eep.)

http://www.warrens.net/annabell.htm

maybe decided to escape for a night and visit your house?
 
Mia said:
hi i'm mia. :)

just wanted to add that this wouldn't be the first case of a possessed oversized raggedy-ann doll.

the warrens in connecticut, USA keep one named "annabelle" locked in a glass case in their occult museum. supposedly, it terrorized a family during the 70's and even slashed someone with a knife! (eep.)

http://www.warrens.net/annabell.htm

maybe decided to escape for a night and visit your house?
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Man, that's the craziest thing ever, a doll locked in a box with DANGER plastered onto it! I'd never have put Baby Boy or Ted in one of those :(
 
The Dolls! The Dolls!

My grandmother Ann, a stout woman who lives alone on a farm, used to have 2 statues of dogs. Perfectly lifelike, we (my cousins and I) would never turn our backs to them. Several of us saw, though not at the same time, them move their heads around to follow us as we walked through the room. I geuss that she got rid of them, but we still talk about the one in particular, "scottie dog" as we refer to it. We were convinced that they came to life when we weren't looking.
 
Zygon said:
And so the evidence mounts.

Beginning to formulate a tentative theory that these Toddler Ticklers can be thwarted by toys that are also 'strong totems', e.g. bears, large cats (common animal totems in ages past) and toy guns (equivalent modern, mechanistic totem for a more mechanistic age). :)
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Maybe these phenomena should be called Night Tickle Torture Terrors (N.T.T.T.).

MC's post reminded me of the lion statue from the same site Mia mentioned above.:eek!!!!:
 
Re: Creepy dolls and scarred childhoods...

Zygon said:
Eventually I grabbed the toy gun that was in the 'cage' with me and fired it at the attacking golly.

...my dad took me by the hand back into the room where it had all happened -and there was the golly, back on the sofa where it had started off -except that the side of its chest was ripped apart and all the stuffing was falling out, and there was bits of stuffing all over the floor around the 'cage' thing I'd been in...
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Butterfly said:
Thinking that one of her other kids had gone into the baby's room, she got out of bed and popped her head round the baby's bedroom door. There was the toddler in fits of laughter and ... writhing and contorting as if being tickled!
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Fallen Angel said:
I have bunnies, and my daughter has some too....and we have a stuffed cheetah named BooKitty to keep 'em in line because (you're gonna love this) my daughter used to say that they would come into her bed and tickle her then scratch her...until we got BooKitty. I'd write this off to toddler imagination, but the whole subject came up because of scratches on her arms and belly.
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What's going on here - reality imitating dream?
 
H.P. Lovecraft used to have nightmares about dark, flying, tickling things. In adult life, these became "nightgaunts" in his stories.

It's appropriate that he was haunted by ticklers, because Lovecraft is a very funny writer in his own peculiar way; the kind of joker who never cracks a smile himself, and confuses people with a more conventional sense of humor. If you don't see this when reading the stories, try playing *Call of Cthulhu* sometime and experience just how hard you can laugh as the world disintegrates around you, you die horribly, and your friends run mad.

As for the power of stuffed animals, I am always (as a doll collector) annoyed by people who find dolls creepy. My dolls are all benevolent and friendly, thank you; the glass case is to reduce dust and breakage. It is easy to project our fears and needs onto the inanimate objects around us, especially those that have animate features such as eyes, mouth, etc. If independent entities can "possess" inanimate objects or take their forms, then it only makes sense that the ones which are the focus of good feelings - such as Bookitty, who obviously was perceived as benevolent and powerful from the get-go - should attract good entities, while those which are the focus of bad feelings should attract bad ones. If the phenomena are entirely subjective - if mysterious movements are misinterpretations of sensory data, or caused by subconcious PK, or whatever - than this is even more true.

As for the Raggedy Ann doll who started this thread, I have to say that she doesn't have "ginger plaits." She has a fringe of bright red curls clustering around her face, and if you read the stories in which she is featured (by Johnny Gruelle, writing about his daughter's favorite doll), you'll see that, not only is she an unlikely focus for evil forces, she was probably merely stopping by on her way to an adventure.
 
Re: Re: Re: Creepy dolls and scarred childhoods...

Zygon said:
anyone else out there with 'Grinning Tickler Attack' stories? :eek!!!!:
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Okay. I missed this somehow when it was new. I've been told by my mother than when I was a baby, it wasn't unusual for me to break into hysterical laughter in my sleep. I have no memories of it.
 
I don't get it. Why keep all those alleged demonic things around? Why not destroy them?

<edit> I never particularly liked doll, although I had one, called Cleopatra, which was about 3 foot high and wore a beautiful blue dress. Never had any problems with her.

Lots of weird things happened in the two houses I lived in as a child. Nothing involving toys though, thankfully.
 
Mia said:
the warrens in connecticut, USA keep one named "annabelle" locked in a glass case in their occult museum. supposedly, it terrorized a family during the 70's and even slashed someone with a knife! (eep.)

http://www.warrens.net/annabell.htm
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I shouldn't have read that. I *really* shouldn't have read that... :eek!!!!:

Dolls are creepy at the best of times, but that one. Eek! :eek!!!!:
 
Peni made some beautiful points and I've made a few dolls myself. That said... ;)

The haunted rag doll stories were tickling something in my memory about "doll's hearts". I searched the internet, but couldn't find anything except about Raggedy Ann's candy heart. I wondered if anyone knew if it was common to put a keepsake or note inside a home-made rag doll to signify the "heart" of the doll. Couple that with the idea that they might be made with discarded clothing, buttons, or other used belongings may add to their "power" or haunted reputation.
 
Tulip Tree said:
The haunted rag doll stories were tickling something in my memory about "doll's hearts". I searched the internet, but couldn't find anything except about Raggedy Ann's candy heart. I wondered if anyone knew if it was common to put a keepsake or note inside a home-made rag doll to signify the "heart" of the doll. Couple that with the idea that they might be made with discarded clothing, buttons, or other used belongings may add to their "power" or haunted reputation.
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My ever-useful *Collector's Encyclopedia of Dolls* (Coleman & Coleman, 1968) has no entry for "heart," skipping straight from "Head" to "Heath, Almon" (who got a design patent in the early 1920s). Hearts are not mentioned in the long article on rag dolls (but in 1906 there was a company that made early portrait dolls by using your child's photograph as the face! Now that, I do find creepy!) However, the entry for Raggedy Ann doesn't even mention the books, so the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; all encyclopedias have their limits. Most rag dolls through history have been homemade, so some such tradition could have existed in a particular geographic location.

I flashed on something, too, when I read the above; but I quickly realized that I was remembering, not a real doll, but a storybook. I thought at first it was Rumer Godden, but on reflection I'm sure it was newer. So I trotted on over to my own website, where I have a little section on "Dolls in Literature," and found that I had completely failed to list this when I read it, so that was no good. What I'm remembering was a faux-Victorian story with two orphan girls, one of whom supported them both by delicately embroidering hearts onto dolls, as the final touch for a high-end doll maker; these were not rag dolls, but bisque- and china-heads with sawdust stuffed bodies (which isn't at all how it was done; I think one reason I didn't bother to put this on the webpage must have been irritation at the author's not bothering to research Victorian doll manufacture before composing the story).

The Japanese line of Kewpies had red heart-shaped stickers rather than the shield on the German line, and the Steadfast Tin Soldier melted into the shape of a heart. The interiors of dolls were popular places to hide small treasures (silverware, jewelry, military secrets) during the American Revoloution and Civil War. This is all I'm getting. It's a nice idea, and I think I might do it if I ever execute my vague plan to make a rag doll for my neice, but without a firm reference from somewhere, heart-talismans inside rag dolls will have to remain only a nice idea.
 
Loads if information, thanks Peni. I bought some antique photos, thinking to take my doll making a step up and matching the clothes and face to the portraits. I guess that's kind of creepy, too, but time and distance seems to make it less spooky.

I also thought of putting something inside the dolls, a little poem or something to signify the heart of the doll. I was sure I had gotten the idea from somewhere else. Like you, I couldn't find a source.

I wonder if it was from a Barbara Michael's book. She had one about haunted quilts made with keepsakes of human hair and discarded clothing. She might have mentioned rag dolls.
 
Dolls hearts

If you buy a stuffed toy from The Bear Factory, you choose a skin, growl/miaow/record your own message etc, and when they've stuffed it and are sewing it up, the assistants take a small red satin heart, and place it in the toy.

Creepy? Cute? In the eye of the beholder I guess :miaow:
 
Re: Dolls hearts

Mummy said:
If you buy a stuffed toy from The Bear Factory, you choose a skin, growl/miaow/record your own message etc, and when they've stuffed it and are sewing it up, the assistants take a small red satin heart, and place it in the toy.
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I got a stuffed horse for my friend from there, and I don't remember the heart. The lady who (over)stuffed it for me seemed rather unpleasant, so I suppose it's just as well. :rolleyes: I thought the horse was rather funny since it had cloven hooves.

I've heard of the "doll heart" thing before, but only with the wooden/candy hearts placed inside Raggedy Annes. The idea of a poem or note inside of a doll is interesting, though.

I have a few dolls myself, but I don't think they're evil or posessed. They're too new for that. :p
 
Hello,

I read this thread with some interest :)

I had a black raggedy ann doll that gave me nightmares. I used to lock her in the closet. And, to make matters worse, I remember a book (maybe someone can elaborate for me because I know I can't be the only person who read it), that said something about the history of dolls. That they were basically used to transfer souls of the dead, but as time passed, the beleif dissipated and dolls became toys. This very same book said how clowns were originally harbingers of death because cannibals painted their faces in absurd smiles etc., to get their victims to trust them, then they would steal them away and kill them and eat them. Fast forward a few hundred years and some business man visiting africa found this out, brought the idea back to america with him and invented the goofy, sappy creature we know today as the clown. The book also said that it is a an old ingrained memory that people have to run from clowns because of what they once represented and that many satanic cults still paint their faces to attract victims, etc., and about 20 years ago, in boston, some psycho kidnappers went around in a van kidnapping kids, with their faces painted like clowns.
Lastly, I never give children dolls, for gifts or otherwise because I have had experiences with dolls and I beleive their old purpose is still at work.

WW

Oops, I almost forgot to add that it is an old belief in my family that you should never put dolls in a babies crib because they can suffocate the child, literally. What if SIDS is a product of young children being tickled by evil unseen forces, or suffocated by dolls. I hope noone takes this to offense, because SIDS is a serious condition and it saddens me that there is no true explanation of it, but crib death is old...as old as superstition, and if there is no scientific explanation, why not consider one that is of the paranormal variety. Supernatural forces have been here longer than science.
 
Never mind stuffed toys and dolls, what really freaks me out are those ventriloquists dummies, you know the ones I mean with their shiny faces and manic eyes, even just thinking about them makes me shudder!
I put it down to seeing that film with Anthony Hopkinds and the psychotic dummy when I was about eight - that is one seriously disturbing film !!

I think I'll have to lie down and think happy thoughts now - Ferguson getting sacked, Man Utd relegated, ah that's good, feeling better already. :D
 
Hello,

I remember that movie!!!
Yup, ventriloquist dummies are scary. Also, those puppets with the strings---I forget what they are called, but I remember a movie where a kid had a little theatre full of them and they would move around and try to untie themselves. It was a foreign film with subtitles that used to play on the IFC channel.
That scared the crap outa me and I was twenty-two when I saw it!!!

WW
 
Marionettes? I think that's what the stringed puppets are called.

I don't like ventriloquist dummies either. I guess my distinction between those and (my) dolls is in what features are exaggerated. Ventriloquist dummies have their mouths greatly exaggerated into those huge grins that seem almost menacing. They're just sort of grotesque, like they want to make them look as ugly as possible...

Not that I haven't seen some rather awful dolls in my day, too. The ones I especially dislike are those antique ones with the open mouths with the top row of teeth. They always seem to be sneering at you.

I also dislike baby dolls. :cross eye Eurgh. Especially the ones that are loaded with make-up and fake eyelashes and ruffles and have their fat greatly exaggerated. I hate all baby dolls, but those kind are definately the worst.
 
Hello,

Up until I was about 20 and I moved out of my parents house, my mother had this Brazilian doll made out of wood, and polished. It had only a head and torso, and the rest of it was made out of cloth. It had a kind of Nubian, or Amazonian (?) headpiece and a red cotton dress.
Well, for as long as I can remember, that doll always sat on the living room sofa, right in the center, like a showpiece. I never paid it much mind for most of my childhood, until one night, when I was sixteen, I had to use the bathroom really bad.
I ran through the hall, in the dark, as my eyes adjusted I saw a lump on the floor, I stopped and kind of inched my foot towards it. I tapped it with my foot and realized it was something cottony. I reached for the hallway light and when I turned it on, I realized it was that doll.
I didn't even give it any thought, because A) I had to pee, and B) we had a cat, so I picked the doll up, went to the living room really quick and threw it on the couch. I shut off the light and went to the bathroom.
When I was finished and making my way across the hall again, I stepped on something, pillowy and then something hard jabbed my foot.
It was like stepping on a rock.
Again I turned on the hall light, and THAT doll was there AGAIN!

I went around the house looking for the cat, turning all the lights on. Of course I managed to wake my sister up in the process.

She asked me what I was doing and I explained to her that I was looking for the cat, to which she told me my brother had let the cat out that night.

Now, we had no cat door, and to this day, my parents have NO cat door.
It was winter, so no windows were open.

I told my sister what had happened.
She, unlike me, didn't give it much thought.
She took the doll, threw it in the hallway closet and locked the door.
I went to bed, after what seemed like an eternity of heart palpitations, etc.

My mother looked for that doll, and we never told her where it was.
Of course, after I moved, I went to see my littlest sisters, and that doll was back on the couch.
Incidentally, my five year old sister begged my mother to get rid of it, and my mother packed it away somewhere.

I wouldn't say this story is necessarily paranormal in nature, but it is a curious one, none the less.


WW
 
"I have a vivid recollection of a nightmare I had when I was about 2 and a half or so years old (1965 or '66, hence the political incorrectness of the doll): basically my golly -red tailed coat, matching bow tie, bright buttons, mitten-hands (no fingers!) and a big cheesy grin- came to life and got off the sofa where it was sitting, came over to where I was (one of those outsized wooden cage affairs my parents kept putting me in in the sitting room to stop me wandering around the house first thing in the morning on their days off), reached through the bars and started tickling me.

It kept this up until I could barely breath, darting around the bars to get at me whenever I moved to get away. Anyone else who hates being tickled knows how frantic you can get if your tickler doesn't take the hint and stop when you make it clear you don't like it: imagine what it's like at 2 years old and the tickler isn't even human.

Eventually I grabbed the toy gun that was in the 'cage' with me and fired it at the attacking golly. The damn thing flew backwards across the room, and without waiting to see where it landed I somehow got out of the cage and made a tearful, hysterical beeline for my mum and dad's room."


Okay, that's a creepy story!

Gonna have to get me one of those toy guns though.
 
OMG!

Your story is similar to the experience I had when I was four, only it wasn't with dolls.
There are seven of us and I am the oldest and I have a sister who is two years younger---so when this happened, we were the only two kids in the family at the time.
She slept in a crib across from me and I slept in this huge queen-size bed my cousin gave to me.
Well, one night I was awakened by a scratching sound so I peered over the covers and there were atleast five little forms dangling from my sisters crib.
They wore pointy hats and spoke in a kind of gibberish.
The were trying to poke their hands into the crib to grab at my little sister who was crying really low, so my guess is either she was paralyzed and couldn't scream, or she was actually asleep.
Anyways, after staring for a while, I knew I had to do something. I used to sleep with a flashlight because I was a paranoid-schizophrenic at a VERY young age, but I digress...so my plan was to flash the light on the THINGS but the flash light DID not work. So I took aim and I threw it.
Next thing I knew those things turned to me and made a beeline for my bed, climbing up the covers. Of course the closer they got the more paralyzed with fear I was, so I couldn't call out for my mother.
But my little sister finally got up and screamed at the top of her lungs. THose things jumped from my bed and ran under the crib, and a few seconds later my father came and put on the light and they were gone!

To this day, I donot approve of small children sleep alone. Seriously. WHen I become a parent, my kids are sleeping with me!

I tried to look up what those things were and the closest I came to were gnomes, elves and gremlins. One thing I do remember is the room was rank with the smell of baked cookies or something to that effect.

WW
 
WonderWoman said:
The were trying to poke their hands into the crib to grab at my little sister who was crying really low, so my guess is either she was paralyzed and couldn't scream, or she was actually asleep.
.....
Of course the closer they got the more paralyzed with fear I was, so I couldn't call out for my mother.
But my little sister finally got up and screamed at the top of her lungs.
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So they had the power to induce parallysis?
When they took their attention off your sister and onto you, you became parallyzed while she came out of her parallysis.
One thing I do remember is the room was rank with the smell of baked cookies or something to that effect.
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Maybe they were brownies. ;)
 
The "good people"get into the dolls because we are their playthings. They have played with humans for thousands of years. We still have a Teddy Ruxpin bear in our attic,bought for our son when he was two-hes seventeen now . I may send it with him when he moves out, its acreepy thing ,Itook the batteries out when Istored it ,but still expect it to talk to me when Im in the attic.
 
Ahh I seriously don't believe that this is at all related, but it might be.

When I was an infant I'd stop breathing when in bed, only survived due to the diligence of my mother and some other strange things.

Anyways, when I was a little kid, I could not sleep in my room. I was just absolutely terrified of it for some reason. I think up until the age of 5 I slept in my brother's room. Even when my brother wasn't there, I was able to sleep in his room, but not mine. He had a large shelf, the top row of which was lined with numerous stuffed animals. The most notable one was an old bear, I think made or owned by my grand mother.

Anyways, around this point, for some reason long forgotten reason I developed an intense desire to buy a bronze statuette of a lion. Saved up my allowance money and bought it.

I then, for some reason, moved back into my room, where the lion figurine was facing the bed. Over the next while I amassed quite a large connection of stone/semi-precious/brass/bronze animal figurines, and had them distributed about my room in a rough circle facing the bed. They're still there, to my knowledge, as my mother still owns the house but I haven't been back in a long time.

I don't know why I was terrified of my room, why I was fine in my brother's room, if his stuffed animals had something to do with it, and why I was able to move into my room after I collected my own figurines. But although I can't remember the particulars, some of the elements in this thread were similar to my early life (especially since whenever I'm woken up, in the middle of a sleep cycle, I remember nothing, yet sometimes I am told I carry on lengthy conversations with people or do things if I'm woken up, yet I never remember it).
 
When I was very young I was into cars and trucks like any "normal" boy. At some point, after a bunch of freaky experiences like the kind you read about on this thread, I started to collect toy lizards, dinosaurs, and monster; spiders and lions and other dark and menacing toys. Looking back on it now I can see it was like I was practising some sort of totemism; an attempt to guard against (or appease) the dark forces in my life with equally monstrous toys. My room was filled with creepy crawleys and I still have about half of them stored away somewhere. I used to feel safer with them surrounding me. I think they worked reasonably well at keeping the "boogie man" away as far as I can recall.

I feel somewhat grateful for my bizzare experiences now: if it weren't for them I might now be into Nascar racing instead of fortean things. :cross eye
 
Do you know, after all this time I thought I had fear-fatigue...and then I read this thread!:eek:

Thank God for Bannik's 'brownie' joke.:D
 
little kiddie winks live in a magic place with different rules to 9-5 ers and alike and as a consequence things like toys and dolls and such are given the credence needed to get up to spooky things.
When i was a small fellow given my natural interest in all things fortean i bought a chess piece (whilst on my jolly hols in Portugal) thinking it to be a magical charm of some type.It was a chinese warrior bloke with a dirty great sword type thing.One day myself and my parents were off to the pool leaving my sister behind in the villa,she was reading a book or something and also being fair skinned didn't relish the idea of sitting by a pool and frying.As I left I assured her that whatever she did while we were away would be fine and she would come to no harm at all as my little chinese bloke would watch over her.i had placed quite a store of confidence in the fellow and felt safer with the figure in my room.less than an hour later myself and my parents saw a fair skinned young lady darting from the shade of a tree to the shade of a van etc until she was along side us by the pool.Clearly my sister was heftily upset and explained the reason she had braved the heat was because the 'man' was watching her.
i had felt happier with the lucky warrior guy keeping an eye out for me and the same situation had freaked the beejesus out of my sister.I suppose it's all relative
 
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