Bloody Mary is a legend of a ghost, phantom, witch, or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is chanted repeatedly. The Bloody Mary apparition may be benevolent or malevolent, depending on historic variations of the legend. Bloody Mary appearances are mostly witnessed in group participation play.
Historically, the divination ritual encouraged young women to walk up a flight of stairs backward holding a candle and a hand mirror, in a darkened house. As they gazed into the mirror, they were supposed to be able to catch a view of their future husband's face. [1] There was, however, a chance that they would see a skull (or the face of the Grim Reaper) instead, indicating that they were going to die before they would have the chance to marry. [1] [2]
In the ritual of today, Bloody Mary allegedly appears to individuals or groups who ritualistically invoke her name in an act of catoptromancy. This is done by repeatedly chanting her name into a mirror placed in a dimly lit or candle-lit room. The name must be uttered 3 times (or some other specified number of times). [3] Some stories even say you must chant her name into the bathroom mirror 47 times then she will come out of the mirror. [4] The Bloody Mary apparition allegedly appears as a corpse, witch, and ghost that can either be friendly, evil, or a demonic spirit, and is sometimes seen covered in blood (hence the name). The lore surrounding the ritual states that participants may endure the apparition screaming at them, cursing them, strangling them, stealing their soul, drinking their blood,[ citation needed ] or scratching their eyes out. [5] Some variations of the ritual call Bloody Mary by a different name—"Hell Mary" and "Mary Worth" are popular examples. [3] The modern legend of Hanako-san in Japan strongly parallels the Bloody Mary mythology. [6] Additionally, in the 1990s the Bloody Mary ritual was represented pop culture and used as a tool to discuss racial and sexual violence and gender oppression. [7]
Staring into a mirror in a dimly lit room for a prolonged period can cause one to hallucinate. [8] Facial features may appear to "melt", distort, disappear, and rotate, while other hallucinatory elements, such as animal or strange faces, may appear. Giovanni Caputo of the University of Urbino writes that this phenomenon, which he calls the "strange-face illusion", is believed to be a consequence of a "dissociative identity effect", which causes the brain's facial-recognition system to misfire in a currently unidentified way. [8] Other possible explanations for the phenomenon include illusions attributed, at least partially, to the perceptual effects of Troxler's fading [9] [8] and possibly apophenia, [10] or even self-hypnosis.[ citation needed ]
There is some debate on the identification of Bloody Mary and if she is based on a real woman. [11] A number of historical figures have been put forward as candidates for "Mary" including Mary I of England (daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon), who had around 300 religious Protestant dissenters burned at the stake during her reign, earning her the nickname "Bloody Mary"; [11] Elizabeth Báthory, a 17th-century Hungarian countess who allegedly tortured and killed around 660 girls and women, bathed in their blood, and was accused of vampirism; [12] and Mary Worth, who has been identified as either a woman who killed slaves escaping the American South via the Underground Railroad [13] or a woman who was burned at the stake during the Witch trials in the early modern period. [14]
Bloody Mary most commonly refers to:
In folklore, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes to realistic, lifelike forms. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy, or in spiritism as a séance. Other terms associated with it are apparition, haunt, haint, phantom, poltergeist, shade, specter, spirit, spook, wraith, demon, and ghoul.
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.
Legend tripping is a practice in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting. The practice mostly involves the visiting of sites endemic to locations identified in local urban legends, and can serve as a rite of passage. Legend tripping has been documented most thoroughly to date in the United States.
Scrying, also referred to as "seeing" or "peeping," is a practice rooted in divination and fortune-telling. It involves gazing into a medium, hoping to receive significant messages or visions that could offer personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, or inspiration. The practice lacks a definitive distinction from other forms of clairvoyance or divination but generally relies on visions within the chosen medium. Unlike augury, which interprets observable events, or divination, which follows standardized rituals, scrying's impressions arise within the medium itself.
The Churel, also spelled as Charail, Churreyl, Chudail, Chudel, Chuṛail, Cuḍail or Cuḍel, also known as Petni and Shakchunni, is a mythical or legendary creature resembling a woman, which may be a demoniacal revenant said to occur in South Asia and Southeast Asia, particularly popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. The churel is typically described as "the ghost of an unpurified living thing", but because she is often said to latch on to trees, she is also called a tree-spirit. According to some legends, a woman who dies very cruely will come back as a revenant churel for revenge, particularly targeting the males in her family.
Urban Legends: Bloody Mary is a 2005 American direct-to-video supernatural slasher film directed by Mary Lambert, and starring Kate Mara, Robert Vito, Tina Lifford, Ed Marinaro and Lillith Fields. It is the third and final installment in the Urban Legend film series, although it is almost entirely unrelated to both of the films that came before it, using supernatural elements instead of a whodunit formula. The film follows three high school students who inadvertently summon the ghost of a dead high-school girl, who starts coming after her old classmates.
The Krasue is a nocturnal female spirit of Southeast Asian folklore. It manifests as the floating, disembodied head of a woman, usually young and beautiful, with her internal organs still attached and trailing down from the neck.
A White Lady is a type of female ghost. She is typically dressed in a white dress or similar garment, reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with local legends of tragedy. White Lady legends are found in many countries around the world. Common to many of these legends is an accidental or impending death, murder, or suicide and the theme of loss, betrayed by a husband or fiancé, and unrequited love.
Legends of vampires have existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demonic entities and blood-drinking spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century Central Europe, particularly Transylvania as verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or a living person being bitten by a vampire themselves. Belief in such legends became so rife that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.
Ghosts are an important and integral part of the folklore of the socio-cultural fabric of the geographical and ethno-linguistic region of Bengal which presently consists of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. Bengali folktales and Bengali cultural identity are intertwined in such a way that ghosts depicted reflect the culture it sets in. Fairy tales, both old and new, often use the concept of ghosts. References to ghosts are often found in modern-day Bengali literature, cinema, radio and television media. There are also alleged haunted sites in the region. The common word for ghosts in Bengali is bhoot or bhut. This word has an alternative meaning: 'past' in Bengali. Also, the word Pret is used in Bengali to mean ghost. In Bengal, ghosts are believed to be the unsatisfied spirits of human beings who cannot find peace after death or the souls of people who died in unnatural or abnormal circumstances like murders, suicides or accidents. Non-human animals can also turn into ghosts after their death. But they are often associated with good luck and wealth in Bangladesh.
Hanako-san, or Toire no Hanako-san, is a Japanese urban legend about the spirit of a young girl named Hanako who haunts lavatories. Like many urban legends, the details of the origins of the legend vary depending on the account; different versions of the story include that Hanako-san is the ghost of a World War II–era girl who was killed while playing hide-and-seek during an air raid, that she was murdered by a parent or stranger, or that she committed suicide in a school toilet due to bullying.
Both folk and urban legends have served as inspiration for a number of depictions of Bloody Mary, a ghost, phantom or spirit conjured to reveal the future; these are especially prevalent in films and television shows dealing with the supernatural.
Daayan, Ḍāin or Ḍāini is often mistakenly regarded as a rendering for a witch in Indian folklore, the term has been derived from the Sanskrit word dakini, which refers to a female paranormal entity from patala. Dakinis have been described in medieval Hindu texts such as the Bhagavata Purana, Brahma Purana, Markandeya Purana and Kathasaritsagara as female fiendish spirits in the train of Kali who feed on human flesh.
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or cremation ceremonies are important, such vengeful spirits may also be considered as unhappy ghosts of individuals who have not been given a proper funeral.
A Lady in Red or Red Lady is a type of female ghost, similar to the White Lady, but according to legend is more specifically attributed to a jilted lover, killed in a fit of passion, or woman of vanity. In all cases, the Lady in Red is wearing a scarlet or blood red dress. She is said to typically be friendly in disposition, with a story attached to historic hotels, theatres or other public places, with a higher frequency of reports.
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