Bloody Marythe name strikes fear into many of us as we recall the game we played as kids. Go into a room with a mirror such as a bath or dressing room. Turn out all the lights, light a single candle and begin in a soft whisper to chant the name Bloody Mary thirteen times. Each time you say the name, your voice should get louder until the 13th time you are screaming it at the top of your lungs. Some variations of the game have you spinning around with each mention of her name and glimpsing into the darkened mirror with each turn. By the thirteenth spin a female face will appear in the mirror and if you look too long, she will scratch your eyes out, pull you into the mirror or even kill you! This game never fails to instill utter horror in the person playing it. Talk to anyone who has ever played it, they will tell you they really saw something there! Was that something the spirit of Bloody Mary?
But who is this vengeful spirit trapped behind the mirror and so anxious to cause us harm?
Ask anyone who has played the game and they will have a different story for the origins of Bloody Mary. In 1978 Janet Langlois published her essay "Mary Whales I Believe in You: Myth and Ritual Subdued based upon seventeen texts collected in Indianapolis in 1973. Langloiss principal concern in her essay was to seek to illuminate the long-standing and vexing question of the relationship between "myth" and "ritual". Does myth evolve from ritual or vice versa?
Speaking on the function of the mirror, Langlois remarks that "It literally reflects the identification of the participants with the revenant. In normal situations, when any of the girls looks in the mirror, she sees herself, in reports of the game playing, she sees Mary Whales, or at least, expects to. In a sense, then Mary Whales becomes the girl's own reflection". Belief in summoning the mirror-witch was widespread throughout the U.S., even at that time. It's possible these "mirror witch" games have their roots in old time divining rituals involving unmarried girls seeking to see the face of their future husbands. There are a number of variations of these divinations, some involving chanting a rhyme in a darkened room on a special night and then quickly looking in the mirror to catch a glimpse of the bridegroom-to-be.
The concept of mirrors as portals between this world and the realm of spirits is not new. In the days before funeral homes, corpses were washed by the deceaseds family, dressed in their funeral clothes and laid out in coffins in the parlor for their families to view. All of the mirrors in the house would be covered because of the belief that if the dead caught a glimpse of themselves in a mirror, their spirit would be trapped in the mirror and remain in the house rather than moving on to the world of the dead.
One tale of Bloody Mary goes back to the 1930's. A lady by the name of Mary Belle Rider was the second wife of a rich aristocrat who had homes all across the East Coast. Mary was a very bored lady who dabbled in Witch Craft as a hobby. Eventually she became obsessed with it. There were stories that she accidentally awakened an evil spirit who tormented her, her husband and step-kids for years. The spirit appeared to her in a mirror one night. She became frightened and broke the mirror. She was cut very badly and bled to death before anyone found her. A piece of the mirror was found near her body and it was believed her spirit was trapped in the mirror dimension. She is said to be a very evil, angry spirit who when called upon will kill the person who summoned her and drag them into the mirror realm with her because she is so lonely.
A very common reference to Bloody Mary is Queen Mary of Tudor. An unhappy Catholic queen, Mary had over 300 Protestants burned at the stake in defense of her beloved Catholic Church. She died lonely and childless and was dubbed Bloody Mary because of her short but bloody reign of terror. Some say she is trapped in the mirror because of her hideous deeds. Incorrectly, she is said to have bathed in the blood of virgins in an attempt to preserve her youth, but that was another female ruler entirelyElizabeth Bathory. Sometimes a legend is twisted to suit whoever is relating the tale.
Another name associated with Bloody Mary is Mary Worth who is typically described as a child-murderess who lived in the area where the legend took root a century ago. There is often a specific local graveyard or tombstone that becomes attached to the legend. Recently in an episode of the WBs Supernatural, Bloody Mary was depicted as the spirit of Mary Worthington, a woman who was murdered in front of her mirror. Her eyes had been cut out of her head. She subsequently murdered anyone who harbored a secret relating to someone who died. Her victims eyes were liquefied and they subsequently died. The Winchester Brothers, Dean and Sam, defeated her by showing a mirror reflection of her, thereby turning her own powers against her. If stopping the Bloody Mary of legend could be so easy, it would be the death of a wondrous tale of the price one must pay for choosing evil.
Hollywood has capitalized on the Bloody Mary legend with a variation of the story in the 1992 movie "Candyman" that used the idea for its plot. When the characters chanted "Candyman" in the mirror 3 times, he would appear and murder them with his hook hand. The movie Urban Legends released in 1998 borrowed the Bloody Mary myth for one of its stories. There is no doubt the Bloody Mary tale will be once again revisited with perhaps a different version or twist.
A prominent question about the Bloody Mary legend is why would otherwise rational children want to risk unleashing a murderous spirit? Gail de Vos, author and storyteller, offers the following explanation:
So why do children continue to summon Bloody Mary, flirting with danger and possible tragedy? Psychologists label the ages between 9 and 12 as "the Robinson age". This is the period when children need to satisfy their craving for excitement by participating in ritual games and playing in the dark. They are constantly looking for a safe way to extract pleasure and release anxiety and fears.
This may be a logical explanation, but there is still the question of whether summoning Bloody Mary is safe? Are you willing to take the risk of unleashing her angry spirit? It is up to you to decide. Halloween is near, spirits are restless and perhaps Bloody Mary is waiting for you to call upon her and release her from the painfully lonely existence inside the mirror, so she can scratch your eyes out or even worse take your life as her own! If you choose not to play the game, you should still be ever so cautious! Legend has it that if you are near a mirror in total darkness, she will come for you, regardless of whether or not you're trying to call for her!
.....................................
Researched/Written by Absinthe. Originally published at Horror-Web, on the Serial Killer page.
But who is this vengeful spirit trapped behind the mirror and so anxious to cause us harm?
Ask anyone who has played the game and they will have a different story for the origins of Bloody Mary. In 1978 Janet Langlois published her essay "Mary Whales I Believe in You: Myth and Ritual Subdued based upon seventeen texts collected in Indianapolis in 1973. Langloiss principal concern in her essay was to seek to illuminate the long-standing and vexing question of the relationship between "myth" and "ritual". Does myth evolve from ritual or vice versa?
Speaking on the function of the mirror, Langlois remarks that "It literally reflects the identification of the participants with the revenant. In normal situations, when any of the girls looks in the mirror, she sees herself, in reports of the game playing, she sees Mary Whales, or at least, expects to. In a sense, then Mary Whales becomes the girl's own reflection". Belief in summoning the mirror-witch was widespread throughout the U.S., even at that time. It's possible these "mirror witch" games have their roots in old time divining rituals involving unmarried girls seeking to see the face of their future husbands. There are a number of variations of these divinations, some involving chanting a rhyme in a darkened room on a special night and then quickly looking in the mirror to catch a glimpse of the bridegroom-to-be.
The concept of mirrors as portals between this world and the realm of spirits is not new. In the days before funeral homes, corpses were washed by the deceaseds family, dressed in their funeral clothes and laid out in coffins in the parlor for their families to view. All of the mirrors in the house would be covered because of the belief that if the dead caught a glimpse of themselves in a mirror, their spirit would be trapped in the mirror and remain in the house rather than moving on to the world of the dead.
One tale of Bloody Mary goes back to the 1930's. A lady by the name of Mary Belle Rider was the second wife of a rich aristocrat who had homes all across the East Coast. Mary was a very bored lady who dabbled in Witch Craft as a hobby. Eventually she became obsessed with it. There were stories that she accidentally awakened an evil spirit who tormented her, her husband and step-kids for years. The spirit appeared to her in a mirror one night. She became frightened and broke the mirror. She was cut very badly and bled to death before anyone found her. A piece of the mirror was found near her body and it was believed her spirit was trapped in the mirror dimension. She is said to be a very evil, angry spirit who when called upon will kill the person who summoned her and drag them into the mirror realm with her because she is so lonely.
A very common reference to Bloody Mary is Queen Mary of Tudor. An unhappy Catholic queen, Mary had over 300 Protestants burned at the stake in defense of her beloved Catholic Church. She died lonely and childless and was dubbed Bloody Mary because of her short but bloody reign of terror. Some say she is trapped in the mirror because of her hideous deeds. Incorrectly, she is said to have bathed in the blood of virgins in an attempt to preserve her youth, but that was another female ruler entirelyElizabeth Bathory. Sometimes a legend is twisted to suit whoever is relating the tale.
Another name associated with Bloody Mary is Mary Worth who is typically described as a child-murderess who lived in the area where the legend took root a century ago. There is often a specific local graveyard or tombstone that becomes attached to the legend. Recently in an episode of the WBs Supernatural, Bloody Mary was depicted as the spirit of Mary Worthington, a woman who was murdered in front of her mirror. Her eyes had been cut out of her head. She subsequently murdered anyone who harbored a secret relating to someone who died. Her victims eyes were liquefied and they subsequently died. The Winchester Brothers, Dean and Sam, defeated her by showing a mirror reflection of her, thereby turning her own powers against her. If stopping the Bloody Mary of legend could be so easy, it would be the death of a wondrous tale of the price one must pay for choosing evil.
Hollywood has capitalized on the Bloody Mary legend with a variation of the story in the 1992 movie "Candyman" that used the idea for its plot. When the characters chanted "Candyman" in the mirror 3 times, he would appear and murder them with his hook hand. The movie Urban Legends released in 1998 borrowed the Bloody Mary myth for one of its stories. There is no doubt the Bloody Mary tale will be once again revisited with perhaps a different version or twist.
A prominent question about the Bloody Mary legend is why would otherwise rational children want to risk unleashing a murderous spirit? Gail de Vos, author and storyteller, offers the following explanation:
So why do children continue to summon Bloody Mary, flirting with danger and possible tragedy? Psychologists label the ages between 9 and 12 as "the Robinson age". This is the period when children need to satisfy their craving for excitement by participating in ritual games and playing in the dark. They are constantly looking for a safe way to extract pleasure and release anxiety and fears.
This may be a logical explanation, but there is still the question of whether summoning Bloody Mary is safe? Are you willing to take the risk of unleashing her angry spirit? It is up to you to decide. Halloween is near, spirits are restless and perhaps Bloody Mary is waiting for you to call upon her and release her from the painfully lonely existence inside the mirror, so she can scratch your eyes out or even worse take your life as her own! If you choose not to play the game, you should still be ever so cautious! Legend has it that if you are near a mirror in total darkness, she will come for you, regardless of whether or not you're trying to call for her!
.....................................
Researched/Written by Absinthe. Originally published at Horror-Web, on the Serial Killer page.
