Alan Wake 2: How to Solve the Witchfinder’s Station Nursery Rhyme

You can find the nursery rhyme at Witchfinder’s Station in Cauldron Lake relatively early in Alan Wake 2. The rhyme itself is another riddle, but this time there are various clues scattered around the area that offer a few important hints.

The story behind the Witchfinder’s Station nursery rhyme is particularly morbid, so prepare for some upsetting revelations when you start piecing things together. With this in mind, we’ll walk you through where to find the nursery rhyme on the Cauldron Lake map, how to solve the riddle, and what rewards you’ll get.

Where is the Witchfinder’s Station nursery rhyme in Alan Wake 2?

While you’re in Cauldron Lake, open your map and you’ll see Witchfinder’s Station in the top-left corner. You won’t be able to get there on your first visit to Cauldron Lake; instead, you’ll have to wait until you return after visiting Bright Falls as Saga.

Once you have completed certain mission objectives, you’ll have more freedom to explore the area so you can find clues pertaining to the case. This is when you’ll get chance to venture out to Witchfinder’s Station where you can find the nursery rhyme. 

As per the image above, the nursery rhyme can be found just outside the entrance to Witchfinder’s Station. It’s hard to miss when you approach the station. Saga will also make a comment about it as you get closer, so you should be able to spot it without any issues.

What is the Witchfinder’s Station nursery rhyme in Alan Wake 2?

Approach the piece of paper on the floor and interact with it to read the nursery rhyme. It goes as follows:

“The Hero brave and strong 

left home to right a wrong

From the woods came the

Wolf so greedy and hungry 

That he ate what he found

In the house without a host 

The Hero returned to find

She’d lost the thing she loved the most”

I told you this was going to be an upsetting one, didn’t I? With the clue in hand, it’s time to find the appropriate dolls and figure out which chalk drawing they need to be placed on. 

How do you solve the Witchfinder’s Station nursery rhyme in Alan Wake 2?

Find the dolls

There are two dolls you need to find for this nursery rhyme, a wolf doll and a hero doll. They are inside Witchfinder’s Station, in one of the upstairs rooms. The room is easy to find, as it has a large playpen in the center.

When you walk into the room, you will see the Hero doll next to the pen on the left, and the Wolf doll on top of a box next to the filing cabinet on the right. 

Place the dolls on the chalk drawings

As we explained in our walkthrough of the bird-related nursery rhyme—the first one you’ll encounter in the game—you need to match the dolls to their corresponding chalk drawings in order to complete the nursery rhyme puzzle. 

To solve this puzzle, place the Hero doll on the boat drawing to symbolize the Hero going away on a journey as the rhyme describes. Then, place the Wolf doll on the tree drawing, to reflect the wolf coming out of the forest as it does in the nursery rhyme. When you have placed the dolls in these positions, Saga will comment that she feels that something has changed around her. You’ve completed the puzzle at this point, but now you’ll need to find your reward. 

Follow the pawprints to claim your prize

Approach the entrance to the WItchfinder’s Station again and you will notice some black, shadowy pawprints heading into the station building. Press the action button when you are close and Saga will point out the pawprints, which you can follow into the building and up the stairs. 

Continue following the pawprints and they will lead into the room with the playpen. What you will find is a little upsetting, to say the least. Whatever made the dark pawprints left behind nothing but splatters of a dark substance all over the floor. Just as the nursery rhyme told, the Hero lost that which she loved most to a hungry wolf while out on her journey for redemption. 

Rewards for completing the Witchfinder’s Station nursery rhyme

Despite how sad it is, you have no choice but to follow the pawprints to the grisly shadow scene if you want to collect your reward, as it appears in the middle of the playpen. The orange box you’ll pick up contains a new Charm for Saga’s bracelet.

This is the Coffee Charm, which provides a buff that can save you from death. It’s single-use and will shatter when it activates, rather than being a permanent buff, so only equip it if you know you’re heading into a dangerous situation.

To equip the item on Saga’s charm bracelet, select it in your inventory and navigate to one of the three slots to the left of your inventory space. This will equip it to your bracelet. If you have already completed the bird nursery rhyme and travelled to the Witchfinder’s Station as soon as you could, then you should have one more free space left on your Charm bracelet that you can use for the Coffee Charm. 

Final verdict

As well as offering up a handy Charm for Saga’s bracelet, there is a lot of information to be found around the Witchfinder’s Station that gives you an idea as to why these nursery rhymes are here in the first place. 

If you look around the station, find and read the documents lying around, and unlock the admin computer, you will discover that the FBC—the Federal Bureau of Control from the Control game, set in the same universe as Alan Wake—are the ones who created the nursery rhymes during their research to see if fiction could alter reality. Their work with the nursery rhymes specifically centered around the rhymes potentially altering the future. 

This interesting context, plus the useful Coffee Charm, makes the Witchfinder’s Station nursery rhyme an important one to solve during your time with Alan Wake II, even though its story is somewhat upsetting to follow.