Bloody Mary
I remember enacting an urban ritual with my friends back in middle school. Giggling and squealing, running in and out of the bathroom, not really believing but still terrified by the possibilities. It was less a story with a moral than it was just a sleepover prank. Needless to say I wasn’t surprised that when I asked a roommate to relate an urban legend to me over lunch one day that she chose that of “Bloody Mary."
The storyteller is a 20 year old woman studying psychology at the University. She transferred to school after one semester at another college. She is of French descent and her parents speak French at home. She has conservative to moderate political beliefs and is Lutheran, although does not regularly attend religious services while she is at school. She is in a long distance relationship with her boyfriend of two years who is in the Navy and stationed at Virginia Beach. When prompted for a story she was initially hesitant but finally responded with, “‘Bloody Mary’, I guess.”
You’re supposed to like, go into the bathroom in front of the mirror and turn around saying “Bloody Mary” three times. Then she’s supposed to come.
I asked what happened after that and she replied with a mouthful of food, “She kills you.” This story was told; it seemed, with the assumption that I should know the story. As if it was more a matter of public knowledge than a personal story. This was an accurate assumption on her part as not only had I heard the story many times before, but I also found frequent references to it online. The narrative from my storyteller differed slightly from others I read online, be it the number of times “Bloody Mary” was chanted or supplementary actions that were or were not included, each story had slightly different elements.
"Bloody Mary” is often confused with Mary I, the queen of England from 1553-1558 who restored Roman Catholicism to England, which resulted in many Protestants being burnt at the stake as heretics. While she was referred to as “Bloody Mary”, in very few variations is it the queen who appears in the bathroom mirror (Mikkelson & Mikkelson). Some stories identify Mary as a woman specific to the storyteller’s own community, such as a girl killed in a local car crash or other such tragic accident. In other cases Mary is just a woman of myth; an executed witch, a woman murdered on her wedding night, a mother who killed her children, some tragic or horrific figure that appears in a mirror upon being summoned (“Bloody Mary [person]”).
The early modern era in Western Europe was a dangerous place for women with the rise of so called “witches” populating towns and country sides. With the peak of these witch trials happening between 1560 and 1640 in England (the making of the west 499). This caused the people of Europe to live in fear of the devil and his counterparts on earth. Over 80 percent of victims of these witch trials were women and thousands upon thousands of trials taking place all across Europe and the North American Colonies at the time as well (motw 500). Seeing that women are mostly accused of witches, it raises the questions as to why that is. Upon examining 2 specific cases in this essay, those being of Walpurga Hausmannin from Dillingen, Germany and Francatte Camont from Lorraine, France; one can see that both these cases are very similar in many aspects despite the fact that both these women were trialed in different countries in Western Europe. In this essay, the reader will explore the motivations, visions and the targets of these witch trials with specific evidence and focus on the trials of both Walpurga and Francatte. The reader will also be able see connections between both trials throughout as well.
The 17th century was a chaotic time period in England. England saw a transition in their nation’s religion during the reign of different monarchs. Before the start of the 17th century, England was under a Roman Catholic monarch with Queen Mary. Mary attempted to turn the Church of England into a Catholic Church and in the process earned the name “Bloody Mary”. She earned this name through her executions of many Protestants in England. However once Mary was unsuccessful in creating a Catholic England and was no longer the monarch, the Church went back to a Protestant Church. With the church now being Protestant, the Catholic minority in England began to become upset with the church and even plotted to make the church Catholic again through violence.
Having to take your anger out on someone isn’t fair or good, especially if you’re being killed with frozen lamb. Based on everyone’s understanding, when you kill someone you’ll have to pay the price and consequences. Apparently this lady didn’t. But are we sure she’s going to marry another man and kill him too? In “Lamb to the slaughter”, I’m going to be talking about Mary Maloney and how madly crazy she is.
chicken blood in the middle of the night. She denies all the eyewitness accounts and claims that
The story of “Bloody Mary” was told to me by a twenty year old male. He is a current student at a University, studying accountancy. He has very conservative beliefs regarding politics. His father is an insurance broker and his mother stays at home. This story was collected on March 18, 2006, at his residence. This is the story as he told it to me:
One night Ann saw the shape of a coffin from the egg trick, that's where it all started. Soon after that happened Ann Putman, Abigail Williams, and Betty Parris started acting weirdly. They started babbling, convulsing, or simply staring blankly. Once they were identified as victims of witchcraft they were asked to point out their tormentors. Ann pointed to Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne. She also testified against Tibuta and said that the woman had tortured her grievously by pricking and pinching her dreadfully."(Yanak, T.,and Pam Cornelison, ...
Loach, Jennifer. “Mary Tudor And The Re-Catholicisation Of England.” History Today 44.11 (1994): 16. World History Collection. Web. 18 Nov.2013
Often, the story of “Bloody Mary” is the first story of supernatural form that is told to many individuals as young children. When I was in 3rd grade, a group of friends and I got together to have a sleepover; naturally, we all went to my friend’s basement and started telling scary stories. One of my friends told me that if I went into the bathroom without any lights and said “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a mirror, a bloody figure would appear.
McAuliffe, Mary. ‘Gender, history and witchcraft in early modern Ireland: a re-reading of the Florence Newton trial’ IN: Mary Ann Gialenella Valiulis ed. Gender and power in Irish history. Dublin, 2009. Pp 39-58.
Mary went on to re-implement the Catholic faith in England, however not the Catholic faith before her father broke with Rome. Mary was attempting to go along with the Counter Reformation happening on the continent. This showed great th...
Furthermore, Mary’s father was abusive in the family home to both Mary and her mother. A lifelong criminal, who was known to commit violent armed robberies, was not a good influence for Mary. Billy was often out of work, depending on earnings form Betty to sustain the house. It must be noted that there is some question if Billy is actually Mary’s father, given Betty’s profession; chances are great that Billy was just another victimizer in Mary’s lif...
Mary Warren started out in a manner reminiscent to that of Peter Pettigrew from the famous “Harry Potter,” series; she was a timid follower of a popular group, and admired the bravery and kindness she lacked. After Mary and her so-called ‘friends’ are found dancing naked around a fire in their conservative town, they know they will likely be accused of a crime that could punish them with death; witchcraft. Mary’s friend Abigail, tells the girls to stick to their story that they were dancing in the woods and threatens to kill the girls if they reveal the truth; that Abigail was practicing witchcraft and drank blood in order to take the life of the wife of a man she had had an affair with; Elizabeth Proctor, the boss and friend of Mary Warren.
[During the telling of the story there were no meaningful gestures, just pauses when the storyteller couldn't remember certain details, or when she wanted to take more sips of her macchiato. The storyteller did not relate the story with intonation or pitch changes, nor did her rate change. It was more like the stating of facts she knew.]
Near the middle of the story we see Mary exhibit her bad sinister character; her personality and feelings suddenly change when she murders her own husband by hitting him at the back of the head with a frozen lamb leg. After denying all of Mary’s helpful deeds, Patrick told her to sit down so that he can tell her something serious; the story doesn’t tell us what he says to her but Mary suddenly changes after he tells her something, her “instinct was not to believe any of it” (Dahl 2). She just responded with “I’ll get the supper” (Dahl 2) and felt nothing of her body except for nausea and a desire to vomit. She went down the cellar, opened the freezer, grabbed a frozen leg of lamb, went back upstairs, came behind Patrick, and swung the big leg of lamb as hard as she could to the back of his head killing him. This act of sudden violence shows how much she has gone ...
The way he remembers the story of Bloody Mary is that you have to be standing in front of a mirror. When retelling the story, he paused before specifying that you have to be standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom. You must be by yourself or else it will not work. You must turn out the lights, leaving only a small light on, such as a night light. Next, you have to say the name Bloody Mary thirteen times. He paused again, and then included that you must be turning around in a circle, wh...