I have made a horrific mistake and thus I have to share my findings before I bite it. Maybe this way you people can avoid following my foolish steps. Currently, I am holed up in my office, door locked, my gun in my lap. The sound of chimes is deafening. It drowns out everything else, fills my every thought, and shakes me to my core. Plugging up my ears stopped that vile sound from making its way to me. Even stabbing a pencil through my eardrums didn’t keep it away. At least the pain distracted me for a little.
I must stop rambling, let me take a step back to show what ill fate has befallen me. I am a PhD in Germanic linguistics at a University in southern Germany. As a topic for my doctorate paper, I chose German folk songs and their origins, one of them being “Kling, Glöckchen”. The piece’s title translates to “Ring, Chime”, a classic Christmas-themed song enjoyed by children here since its adaptation onto music paper in 1854 by Karl Einslin. I expected it to have been a traditional celebratory song amongst parts of the population that just needed a man like Einslin to give it wings, which would allow it to leave its local nest.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the song was in fact not birthed from another less polished one but an old nursery rhyme. I found the first mentions of this in an old document protocolling a town meeting from 1517. The inhabitants of Ig***, Bavaria were scrambling to stop the disappearances of children in the area that kept occurring after sundown.
From what I was able to gather, the children would all claim to be able to hear chimes ring in the woods surrounding their homes. Furthermore, they claimed that “She” was calling out to them and that they needed to open their doors for “Her” or all the gifts “She” was carrying would be given to other people. Symptoms however did not end there. Children taken by these hallucinations would progress into a feverish behavior that progressively got worse until it broke into a full-blown mania. As a part of said mania, they would try everything in their might to open the doors of their homes to whatever they believed was on the other side waiting for them and violent outbursts against anyone who attempted to stop them.
One woman described her son stabbing out his brother’s eye with a fork when he tried to keep him inside the house. They concluded that the incidents began happening when a strange nursery rhyme started spreading like wildfire amongst the younger population, which led to them banning it from ever being uttered again.
Mentions of chimes and the rhyme being connected to the vanishing of children on German soil reach far through our history until the nineteenth century when Einslin adapted it and changed its context. It took me a while to understand what had happened here. Einslin must have figured out that something old and very hungry, only referred to as “She”, was hunting for kids by planting the seeds of the rhyme in their minds like a hook. Once the cursed words had taken hold and infested the fresh soil the entity would make its move and take “Her” willing prey to do whatever with them.
By changing the words and bestowing a new cheerful purpose onto the chant, the spell was broken, and “Her” hunting grounds were forever lost. Well, they would have been, had I not uncovered them. Ever since I realized what the song’s true purpose was that wretched sound started chasing me.
At first, I thought I was imagining it. Small, distant chimes accompanied every step I took, following me everywhere I went. Soon my predicament became quite obvious as a hungry panting joined the bells. And then a knock on all my doors and windows. All of them. At once. Then a scratching on my floors and ceiling. My cat vanished. My wife left me soon after as she began being scared by my apparent madness. So should you or your children ever hear the sound of chimes where they don’t belong make sure to not let them give in. Be strong with and for them. I must stop writing now as it appears there is someone at my door.
“Kling, Glöckchen Laßt mich ein, ihr Kinder! Ist so kalt der Winter! Öffnet mir die Türen! Laßt mich nicht erfrieren!”
“Ring, little bell, ring! Let me in, you kids! So cold is the winter! Open the doors for me! Don’t let me freeze!”