Guest Author - Vance Rowe
There are different versions of the Bloody Mary urban legend going around out there. Some people tell the story that a woman died a horrible disfiguring death in a car accident and if you say her name three times into a mirror in a darkened, candle lit bathroom then her face will appear in the mirror and she will disfigure your face. Other variations say that you have to say her name five times, ten times and thirteen times and variations of what will happen to you. She will either come out of the mirror and kill you, disfigure you, bring you into the mirror where you will spend eternity with her in the netherworld, you could go insane just from seeing her face or you will just drop dead from fright.
Who is Bloody Mary ?
Ina book called Spooky Pennsylvania by S.E. Schlosser, Bloody Mary was a witch who lived in the woods near a town and she sold herbal remedies for a living. When young girls from the town began disappearing, the townspeople believed it was the witch who took them. She denied the accusations until she was caught trying to steal a young girl one night. Bloody Mary was then taken from her home and burned at the stake. As she burned, she warned people that if anyone said her name into a mirror, she would appeaer in the mirror and steal the soul of the person who summoned her and would burn for all eternity as Mary had that night.
Another take on the urban legend was that a young girl was very sick early in the nineteenth century and fell into a coma. Other people suffered the same fate around this time and were buried as they were thought to be dead. When some were unearthed,the people were shocked to see claw marks on the inside lid of their coffins. So when the young girl, Mary, fell into a coma, she was believed to be dead as well. However, not sure if she really was dead, her father put a string in her coffin. The string led to the outside of her grave and was attached to a bell. This way if she awoke from her coma, she could pull the string and the bell would ring, alerting her parents that she was alive and they could rescue her. However, both parents were asleep one night and Mary awoke and yanked on the string. The bell rang but no one heard it. The next morning, her father went to her grave and saw the bell was on the ground. He furiously dug her up and saw her bloody fingers worn down to nubs and bloody scratches on the lid of the coffin. This earned her the name of Bloody Mary. After that, putting bells outside of the graves of dead people became common practice just in case the person was not dead. This is also where the term, saved by the bell originated from.
Now, there was a real Bloody Mary and she was the Queen of England from 1516 to 1558. Mary I earned the moniker of Bloody Mary because she returned England to Catholicism from Protestantism and those who refused to revert from being a Protestant, were branded heretics and were burned at the stake during the Marian Persecutions.
Is Bloody Mary haunting your bathroom mirror? Well, on Friday the thirteenth during a full moon, go into your darkened bathroom with a candle and say her name a few times....if you dare!
