Rolling Dice Children’s Rhyme

Roll Roll Roll the Dice

Eat your rice

Chase the mice

Roll Roll Roll the Dice

 One is black

Two is white

Get the sack

Moon is night

Roll Roll Roll the Dice

This ancient rhyme is a popular song among children usually heard in urban communities. Although few children, if any, know the true history of the odd lyrics that they are singing. The Rolling Dice refer to a particular magical artifact called the Demon Dice. They are believed to have been created by hags and can sometimes be found in the possession of cruel and powerful people as a tool for torture or extreme gambling. Demon dice come in sets of three six-sided dice and can be identified by the evil aura that they emit. They are made of bone with the numbers roughly carved into them although the ones are always in the shape of a single bloody eyeball. When rolled, the dice have the possibility of making a person incredibly rich but more often than not they result in painful and often deadly curses. Eat your rice refers to the rare positive results that have tempted many a desperate person to test their luck with the dice. By contrast, the line “chase the mice” indicates the more common negative effects that can reduce a person to a mouse in the grips of a cat. The next four lines are clues to some of the specific curses. “One is black” means that a person is blinded. “Two is white” is commonly believed to mean the summoning of a fearful ghost. “Get the sack” is a play on the slang phrase “Catch the slack” which means a terrible misfortune from the gods. The last line “moon is night” has caused some controversy among historians as to its true meaning. The Lingbreathe School argues that this refers to the great nightmare horse “Moon Night” who is thought to be a portent of calamity. By contrast, the scholar Penthal argues that this is a reference to a lycanthrope curse and many agree with her. Both are compelling interpretations but no scholar has been willing to test their theories by actually rolling the Demon Dice.

In The True History of Common Children’s Rhymes by Agatha Stillbeard.