children's crayon drawing of ollie ollie in come free
Childrens games

Ollie Ollie In Come Free!

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Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It probably started out as All-ee, all-ee, outs in free, a call from the person who was it letting those hiding children (the outs) know it was safe to come back to base in the children’s game of hide-and-seek. The phrase can also be used to coordinate hidden players in the game kick the can, where a group of children hide within a given radius and a seeker is left to guard a can filled with rocks.

boy on hands and knees playing ollie ollie in come free

If the core phrase is All outs in free, the -ee is added, and the all is repeated, for audibility and rhythm. Another approach: in Britain, it was common for the town crier to pre-phrase a declaration with All Ye, All ye meaning that all the citizens of the town needed to be aware of the information the crier was about to state, and early Scots-Irish immigrants to Appalachia would have brought that phrase with them.

“When I was growing up in the American South,” says Charles Wilson in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture,”we actually said, ‘All ye all ye outs in free’ when playing hide-and-seek (although we called it ‘hide-and-go-seek).” Regional variations include:

Ollie Ollie in come free,
Ollie Ollie oxenfreed,
Ollie ollie in come free-o
Ollie ollie oxen free
Ollie ollie oxen free-o
Oly Oly oxen free,
Oly Oly ocean free,
Alley Alley oats in free,
All-ye All-ye outs in free
Ole Ole Olsen free (more common in areas settled by Scandinavians)
Ole Ole Olsen free-o

Children’s sayings were hardly recorded until the 1950s, and they are very variable. That’s because they’ve been passed down orally from one generation to the next, with no adult intervention or correction. But one educated guess is that the phrase’s root is an English-Norman French-Dutch/German concoction: “Alles, Alles, in kommen frei” or “Alle, alle auch sind frei” (literally, “Everyone, everyone also is free”)or “Oyez, oyez, in kommen frei!”

“Allez, allez” was a Norman addition to the English language, pronounced “ollie, ollie” and sometimes written “oyez, oyez” and meaning “everyone.”

The game hide-and-seek is at least four centuries old, and it seems that the call phrase discussed here was in common use by the 1920s, and probably earlier (‘home free’ is found in print in the 1890s).

sources: Children’s sayings / edited with a digression on the small people, William Canton, Isbister & Co, London, 1900 (fully readable online)
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, by Richard Pillsbury, Charles Reagan Wilson, Ann J. Abadie, University of North Carolina Press, 2006
Words to the Wise, by Michael Sheehan
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-oll1.htm
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970422

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19 comments

  2. I grew up in upstate NY and we always yelled Ollie Ollie Homefree when we managed to get to homebase while the seeker was out searching for the other hiders.

  3. Funny, my husband said the ollie…in come free version tonight and I thought he was from Mars. As I corrected him on my oxen (auch sind) version, he swore I must have come from Venus. 🙂 I am of French, Dutch and German heritage mainly and he Irish and Cherokee. Interesting . Glad to find this can’t wait to show him we are not from completely different planets! And apologize 🙂

  4. We said this as kids in Cincinnati in the mid- 60’s

    Our parents were from Appilacia

    Oilie ollie in come free — playing kick the can

  5. Alle alle, auch sind frei. “Ollie ollie oxen frei.” You are missing the Germanic root.

  7. I grew up in Cleveland Ohio and we said Ollie Ollie, I’m free. We used it in the 1960’s playing hide-n-seek

  8. I grew up in Chardon, Ohio in the 50s – 60s. We said “Ollie, Ollie in-free” when we played hide and seek and lifesavers. So much fun growing up during that time! Interesting seeing so many from Ohio representing.

  9. I also grew up in Cleveland and Parma Ohio in the 60’s and remember it as “All-ee, all-ee in free!” At least that’s what I thought we were saying without seeing it in writing. And I was thinking we were saying: “Hey everyone, I’m in free to the base, without getting tagged!” After we were discovered in our hiding place by the one who was “it” we would run and tag the base and yell this so we wouldn’t have to be “it” the next time around. If the one who was “it” (the seeker) tagged us before we made it to the base, then we would be the one who was “it” the next time. It was like a combination of hide and go seek and tag. My parents grew up in WV but I’m not sure where we learned this from–probably from our neighborhood friends who I’m not sure what their backgrounds were: some German, some Polish and others…?

  10. Ok now I’m reading the explanation again and maybe it was actually the one who was “it” who yelled it to let everyone know they were giving up searching and that one person had been found and tagged and was now ready to be “it” next time. So then calling this out would mean “Everyone can come in free now–no chance of getting tagged–someone else was tagged first”. Lot of years ago and haven’t thought of this for a long, long time. I found my cat hiding in a cupboard which was so amusing and then I ran to a place and called this out from someplace in the deep recesses of my brain and laugh! Prompting me to look it up to find the origin leading me to this site! Glad to find it!

  11. We said “Ollie Ollie in come free!” I grew up in Virginia of German-British Isles heritage/background. My parents were from New York and West Virginia.

  12. We always said Ollie Ollie Oxen Free. then if another kid from the neighborhood came and wanted to play when everyone was hiding, we said: ollie ollie oxen free–new cucumber ( for newcomer) We are scandinavian and never never said: Olsen Free as stated above.

  13. Growing up in Tennessee with lots of siblings and cousins, we cried “Ollie Ollie in come free, Free, FREE!!!!” When we were calling all that had not been found to come back to base. Usually the seeking didn’t end until “it” had looked in every possible location. So, the game didn’t end as quickly as some of the games I read about here. They could drag on for an hour or more. It all depended on who “it” was and how mischievous they were. It was s tactic of a couple of players to draw any remaining hidden players out by pretending to still be looking, all the while actually taking a break with “in” players- getting a drink from the hose, cracking jokes, snickering, and just general clowning around at the hidden players’ expense. If they didn’t come out to see what was up and risk being tagged, they would’ve won but missed all the fun! A hard choice to make!!The girls never did this, only the two older boys, but us girls thought it so much fun! I now see they probably made their own rules to their advantage long before any of us girls realized. Never were any feelings hurt/ it was all good fun! ( except for the times when they locked us in a closet and didn’t release us until after supper! Funny now but no so then.)

  15. I grew up in North east Arkansas in the ’40s. “We always said, Bee bee, bumble Bee. Alls outs in free.” I’ve never seen anyone else use this particular version. It was used, as others noted, when the seeker has given up and all still hiding can come in without being tagged.

  16. Growing up in Harford County, Maryland, I said Ollie Ollie in come free. Interesting seeing where and what was used. Great history unraveling here.

  17. Grew up in Southern California and would say Ollie Ollie oxen free for tag. It was a specific game at a specific place though. There was an old park we would play in with a lot of trees and old paths. It was totally enclosed and you’d pay a few bucks to get in. There was this one tree you’d have to touch and yell the chant to be considered safe. If you didn’t touch the tree and say the chant then you could be tagged. I don’t know why we only played by those rules at that one park. Even with the same group of kids those rules were never used anywhere else. As soon as we got to that park the rules didn’t need to be stated you just knew that’s how we played the game.

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