Light as a feather, stiff as a board
children's game
Light as a feather, stiff as a board is a game played by children at slumber parties. The phrase has also become established in popular culture as a reference to a levitation trick, and has been referred to in various media accounts. In performing magic this effect is known as abnormal lift.
Description
One participant lies flat on the floor, facing upwards. The others space themselves around that person, each placing one or two fingertips underneath the participant's limbs. The person closest to the head commonly begins by saying something like "She's looking ill", which is repeated several times, and followed by, "she's looking worse", which is also repeated several times. The general direction of the call-and-repeat describes how the person is looking worse and worse, followed by saying "she is dying", and, finally, "she is dead".
Variations of the spoken part of the game occur. In a common, modern version, the person being lifted is told a story about their death and asked to imagine it happening to them. This is intended to unsettle the participants, and to convince them that something may have changed making it easier to lift the person than before.
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This entry incorporates text from “Light as a feather, stiff as a board” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.