Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

One Black Eye
One night, see there’s this . . . a mother, a father, a little boy, a little girl, and a baby. And 
they went downtown and the little baby says, “Give me a lollipop.” So he got a lollipop. 
So the next night, they went home. And the next morning everybody got up. No . . . just 
the father got up and the mother said, “Go down and get some milk.” And he went down 
there an the ghost came out an he says, “One black eye.” And the father runs back up 
and he says, “Oh, there is not.” So she runs down and he says, “One black eye.” And she 
jumped up there. She says for the little boy to go down there. And he went down and: 
“One black eye.” And he got the sister and she went down: “One black eye.” So she came 
back up and she told the little baby to go down there. And he had his lollipop with him, 
a great big ole lollipop. The monster says, “One black eye.” The baby says, “You’d better 
shut up or you’re going to have 
two
black eyes!”

---

Examples and Texts 83
John M. Vlach collected this tale from 10-year-old Krystal Wood at her 
elementary school in Spencer, Indiana, in October 1971; it was published in 
his article “One Black Eye and Other Horrors: A Case for the Humorous Anti-
Legend” and deposited in the Indiana University Archives (72–82-F).
In his analysis of this tale and others, Vlach emphasizes the importance of 
“at least a token belief ” for the punch line to make people laugh (122). “One 
Black Eye” releases tension related to scary noises and gives the youngest child 
the honor of defeating the ghost with a verbal putdown. A 2001 version in the 
form of a joke appears in Sara Staunton’s “Riddle Use” (99); another variant can 
be found in Bronner (156).
Johnny, I’m on the First Step
There was this little boy and his mother told him to get some liver. So the mother gave 
him some money and he bought candy and forgot about the liver. So he stabbed a man 
and took out his liver. He brought it home and his mother made it for dinner.
So that night, when the mother and father went out, the dead man came to get his 
liver back. Well, Johnny was sleeping when he heard “Johnny, I’m by the door.” But 
Johnny just went back to sleep. And then Johnny heard “Johnny, I’m on the fi rst step, 
Johnny, I’m near your mother’s room, I’m near your door. Johnny, I’m in your room.” 
And then he stabbed the boy.
Sally, a second-grader, told this tale in her classroom in Brooklyn, New York, 
in March 1979. This “gross-out” story has delighted many children. Based on 
Aarne-Thompson tale type 366,“The Man from the Gallows,” the story shows 
how dangerous it can be to show disrespect for the dead. In most versions of 
this story, Johnny does not kill anyone to get a liver; instead, he gets a dead per-
son’s liver in a cemetery (Tucker, “Tradition and Creativity” 131–32, 495–96; 
Grider, 198–201; Bronner 158). In Sally’s story, Johnny’s stabbing of a man 
results in his getting stabbed by the man’s ghost: just punishment for a serious 
crime.
Legends