Did anyone else play a variation called “Ghost in the Graveyard”? In it, the “ghost” would go out and hide while everyone else stayed back at Base, closed their eyes and counted. Once they reached one hundred, they’d all fan out and look for the ghost. Whoever sees the ghost first (either by finding him or the ghost revealing himself) calls out “Ghost in the graveyard!” which is the signal for everybody to run back to Base before the ghost tags them. Tagged person becomes the new ghost. Great night-time game.
Therefore, we may deduce that the oxen probably came to NE Ohio some time during the 1960s.
We said “come out, come out, wherever you are” in Georgia in the early/mid 60s.
Either “olly olly income free” or “come out come out wherever you are”, but mostly “olly olly income free”. Only heard “oxen free” from books and movies. South Carolina, 80’s.
ETA - "ready or not here I come!’ is what you say after you’ve counted to the agreed number with your eyes closed.
ETAA - come to think of it, “come out come out” is just a thing you say in Hide and Go Seek to menace people. And I realize, if you saw this before I edited it, that I was thinking half Hide and Go Seek and half Tag. So I fixed that.
We called out “come out come out wherever you are” in the South, late 60’s.
We usually played until everyone was found, but I can recall a handful of occasions where the last person had such a good hiding spot that they were never found. At that point, it was generally agreed among the others that the person had “won” and we’d just go around yelling that It gave up and they could come out. I remember one game where we searched for my cousin for 45 minutes only to come back and find him relaxing on the living room couch. It’s been 20 years and he never did tell any of us where he’d hidden.
That’s the signal that the game has started, not that it’s ended.
Huh, to me Hide and Go Seek and Olly Olly Oxen Free were two distinct games.
Hide and Go Seek was a game where you searched until the heat death of the universe or you found everyone. If you absolutely had to call the game off for safety, you just explained the situation while yelling. “Come out, come out wherever you are” was a taunt by the seeker.
Olly Olly Oxen Free was a variation of hide and seek where there was a win state for the hiders. If you found a hider while they were hiding, they were eliminated. Otherwise they could make a mad dash for a “home base”, in which case it became a game of tag.
The game ended after a certain percentage of people were either caught or made it to home base, in which case the winning side would call Olly Olly Oxen Free as an all clear to the remaining hiders.
No idea why we had this distinction, but it was widespread. Medium-sized town in Wisconsin early-mid '90s.
NJ 1960s. We called
“Ollee Ollee Outs in Free”
It made sense, in that you were calling the people who were still out, who hadn’t been found. I didn’t hear the version with “oxen” until later, and figured “pxen” must be a variation on/corruption of “outs in”. For all I kinow, that’s backwards, and “oxen” has prior claim, but it makes more sense the other way around.
I strongly suspect that “ollee, ollee” comes from the old call “Oyez, Oyez” that bailiffs and town criers used to call. It means basically the same as “Hear ye, Hear ye”, and is a call to get your attention.
“Monkey, monkey, in a tree, if you come out, you’ll be free.” Northwestern Ontario, 1970s. Chanted to the same cadence as "K-i-s-s-i-n-g’
More or less same time and words, but to me it sounded like “ollie, ollie auction free!”
Ollie, Ollie, oxen free. Northern California, 1970s. I did know that is was a derivative of “All of you out are in the free,” or something to that effect.
I realize I was confusing Tag and Hide and Seek too. Anyone up for a game of Red Light Green Light?
Same place, same time period, same phrase, Ollie, Ollie INfree. I thought “infree” was a word. 
olly olly oxen free. Nevada, late 70s.
Oh - oops. Yeah, I misread the thread. We just shouted something like “all right, someone got tagged!” or whatever.
My sisters and their friends played this in the backyard. Rural Illinois, early '70s.
Same phrase, same time frame, other side of the same state (western Ohio, pretty much halfway between north and south).
Same here. Illinois mid-90’s. Usually the only way hide-n-seek ended without finding everyone was if you said “I give up.”
I grew up in southeastern Ontario and never heard that one.
For us it was “Ollie Ollie Oxen Free”, which of course makes no sense. I realized as an adult that it was likely how our little kid selves heard “Ollie Ollie All Come Free”, but now as an even older adult (actually while reading this thread) I realize that it was probably our variation of “All Ye, All Ye, Out Come Free.”