Talk:Black-eyed children

	This Folklore related article has not received a brainstar for quality. Please consider expanding the article appropriately. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Obvious question

Is any harm caused by the children? Could one source be the game of kids playing 'ring the bell and run' (possibly in Halloween make up)? Anna Livia (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

To my knowledge, apart from the Week in weird post [1], no one has ever been claimed to have been harmed by the black-eyed children. It’s possible that the legend could be perpetuated by kids wearing black full sclera contacts, which will make your entire eye look black. It’s also possible confabulation is at play. (I remember years ago hearing of kids knocking on people’s doors, people getting a bad feeling about them and later discovering they were up to no good. The telltale black eyes weren’t mentioned, but it’d be easy to subconsciously add a detail to a story like that.) I think it’s mostly just that people like to tell good campfire stories. People have pointed out that Bethel believed in something like a tulpa, and have argued that Bethel’s story was an attempt to see if he could create a modern urban legend through sheer force of will. [2] Allgoodusernamesweretaken (talk) 04:02, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

what exactly do they do when they are invited in? its piss poor urban legend if all that happens is they knock on a door and the occupants tell them sling their hook. i mean, thats not 'black eyed children' thats jehovah witnesses. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:14, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps this is an example of an urban-legend-meme that fails to 'take'/evolve (and is of interest as such). Anna Livia (talk) 11:58, 8 February 2022 (UTC)