What is Bloody Mary?
Bloody Mary is an urban legend widely passed down among children in the United States and Britain. At night, in a bathroom with the lights off, if you face the mirror and say “Bloody Mary” three times (or thirteen times, in some versions), the ghost of a bloody woman appears in the mirror. Mary is said to scratch your face or drag you into the mirror, and it is a classic dare at sleepover parties.
Who is Mary?
There are several theories about who “Mary” is. The best known is that she is Mary I, Queen of England in the 16th century. Mary I harshly persecuted Protestants and had many people executed, earning the nickname “Bloody Mary.” Other stories say she is the ghost of a woman whose face was disfigured in an accident, or of a woman executed as a witch.
Rooted in mirror divination?
One of the roots of this game is thought to be an old European love divination. On nights such as Halloween, a young woman holding a candle who looked into a mirror in a dark room would see the face of her future husband, but if she was unlucky, the Grim Reaper or a skull would appear instead.
Why do faces appear?
It is known that if you stare at your own reflection in a mirror in dim light, your face can seem to distort or look like someone else’s. It is a kind of optical illusion, confirmed in experiments by an Italian psychologist. A Japanese ghost story connected with mirrors is Murasaki Kagami (the purple mirror).
