Bloody Mary (person)
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Bloody Mary is a name applied from the British to both Queen Mary I of England and to a figure of Western folklore. Mary I acquired the epithet during the reign of her successor Elizabeth on account of the perceived ferocity of her religious persecutions. The folkloric character is a ghost or witch said to rape, kill, squeeze, eat, and bury children; other very similar tales use different names. Several other fictional characters are also called Bloody Mary.
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[edit] Mary I of England
Queen Mary I of England (reigned 1553 – 1558) is called Bloody Mary because of her persecution of Protestants. The Protestant Reformation, started fitfully in England by King Henry VIII, became established policy under the brief reign of Edward VI. Mary, like her mother Catherine of Aragon, whom Henry VIII had spurned, was a devout Roman Catholic. She contracted an unpopular marriage to the equally devout Philip II of Spain. The pair, with the assistance of conservative churchmen such as Edward "Bloody" Bonner and Stephen Gardiner, sought to reimpose Roman Catholicism upon the religiously divided country.
During her brief reign of just over five years, Mary had 283 people burnt at the stake for heresy. Her persecutions were notable also for the prominence of their victims; the first person to die was the Protestant John Rogers, who had completed and published Tyndale's work as Matthew's Bible. While heresy trials and executions occurred both before and after her reign, she executed more than twice as many as had been executed for this crime over the preceding century and a half.
Mary's half-sister Elizabeth succeeded her. In contrast to Mary's violent epithet, Elizabeth was commonly known as "Good Queen Bess,". However, on one occasion, Elizabeth had about eight hundred Catholics executed for restoring the Mass in a few towns. This has prompted some historians to suggest that a more fitting name for Elizabeth would be "Bloody Bess."[1] Indeed, Irish Catholics reversed the epithets, calling Mary "Good Queen Mary," and Elizabeth "Bloody Bess."[2]
[edit] In folklore
In folklore and children's street culture, "Bloody Mary" is the name of a children's game in which a ghost or witch of the same name (or sometimes other names, such as "Mary Worth") is said to appear in a mirror when summoned. One of the more common ways participants attempt to make her appear is to stand before a mirror in the dark (most commonly in a bathroom) and repeat her name three times, though there are many variations. Some include chanting a hundred times, chanting at midnight, spinning around, rubbing one's eyes, or chanting her name thirteen times with a lit candle. Most of these are meant to disorient people. In some versions of the legend, the summoner must say, "Bloody Mary, I killed your son!" or "I killed your baby." In these variants, Bloody Mary is often believed to be the spirit of a mother (often a widow) who murdered her children, or a woman who was murdered shortly before or after her wedding. In stories where Mary is supposed to have been wrongly accused of killing her children, the querent might say "I believe in Mary Worth." This is similar to another game involving the summoning of the Bell Witch in a mirror at midnight. Similar rituals are also used to summon spirits in the movies Beetlejuice (1988) and Candyman (1992). The game is often a test of courage, as it is said that if Bloody Mary is summoned, she would proceed to kill the summoner in an extremely violent way, such as ripping his or her face off. Other variations say that the querent must not look directly at her, but at her image in the mirror; she will then reveal the querent's future, particularly concerning marriage and children.
Bloody Mary Worth is typically described as a child-murderer who lived in the locality where the legend has taken root years ago. There is often a specific local graveyard or tombstone that becomes attached to the legend.
On the other hand, various people have surmised that the lore about taunting Bloody Mary about her baby may relate her tenuously to folklore about Queen Mary I. [3][4]The queen's life was marked by a number of miscarriages or false pregnancies. Had Mary I successfully borne a child, this would have established a Roman Catholic succession and threatened the continuance of her religious persecutions after her death. Speculation exists that the miscarriages were deliberately induced. As a result, some retellings of the tale make Bloody Mary the queen driven to madness by the loss of her children. [5] It is likely, however, that Queen Mary I provided only her nickname to the Bloody Mary of folklore. She is also confused in some tellings of the story with Mary Queen of Scots. Bloody Mary is sometimes said to have bathed in the blood of her child victims (or more commonly the blood of virgins) in order to retain a youthful complexion; this would appear to confound her with Elizabeth Báthory.
The mirror ritual by which Bloody Mary is summoned may also relate to a form of divination involving mirrors and darkness that was once performed on Halloween. While as with any sort of folklore the details may vary, this particular tale encouraged young women to walk up a flight of stairs backwards, 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. There was, however, a chance that they would see the skull-face of the Grim Reaper instead; this meant, of course, that they were destined to die before they married.
The appearance of a ghostly figure in the mirror could be explained quite easily for the more complex rituals, for example spinning around whilst summoning Bloody Mary in front of a mirror lit by candles. The combination of dizziness, rapid movement and flickering lighting could easily fool the eye into seeing someone, especially when the idea has already been implanted. The participant may think that they have seen a spirit, it is, however, most likely a trick of the eye brought upon by the combination of darkness, fear and disorientation.
[edit] Other uses
Bloody Mary is also the name of a major character in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. She is a native islander, a trader and a somewhat salty character in the play, but there is no known link between the ghost folklore and the musical. Juanita Hall originated the character on the stage, and also played her in the 1958 motion picture version. A song about her makes U.S. Navy sailors sing, Bloody Mary is the girl I love, her skin is tender as DiMaggio's glove, and that she chews betel nuts, and doesn't use Pepsodent, with the refrain Now ain't that too damn bad!
The Bloody Mary cocktail likely gets its name from the red tomato juice that is its defining ingredient; its only likely relationship with the queen, the witch, or the other characters is the name.
In the fictional universe of DC Comics, "Bloody Mary" is a member of the Female Furies, enemies of the New Gods. She is a vampire with the further power of being able to fire dangerous eye beams. In the fictional universe of Marvel Comics, "Bloody Mary" is a persona of Typhoid Mary.
Five for Fighting recorded a song called Bloody Mary on his album America Town; a song about a prostitute.
In the video game Twisted Metal: Black, a playable character goes by the name "Bloody Mary." She was a girl who believed in romance since her childhood, though her need for affection was always unrequited. She acquired her nickname when she snapped at a friend's wedding; she stabbed her to death and stole her blood-soaked gown.
In the video game Terranigma, Bloody Mary is a boss that the player battles after a quite disturbing and unsettling trek through her castle. The castle itself is filled with zombies, skeletons, giant spiders and other horror-based creatures, as well as a few living armors. The player constantly encounters references to Christopher Columbus and Queen Mary. The game claims that despite Columbus' protests, Queen Mary had him take her three sons with him to the new world. Something went wrong however, and Queen Mary's three sons were killed. When Columbus returned, he was locked in the dungeon to rot for eternity. Queen Mary's spirit remained behind as Bloody Mary out of her hatred and spite for Columbus, believing him responsible for the death of her children.
In an episode of the CW television series Supernatural, Bloody Mary is depicted as the spirit of Mary Worthington, a woman who was murdered and had her eyes cut out in front of her mirror. She remained to haunt the mirror and could be summoned in the usual fashion; in this version, however, she only kills those who harbor a secret in which someone died.
The children's game was parodied in the South Park episode "Hell on Earth 2006," where the ghost of Biggie Smalls would appear after saying his name three times in a mirror.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Tarrago, Rafael E. (Rafael Emilio) 1951- "Bloody Bess: The Persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England" [1]; Mary Tudor, North American Review, 1853, Vol 77, p.494[2]
- ^ Irish webpage. [3]
- ^ http://www.mythologyweb.com/bloodymary.html
- ^ http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/bloody.htm
- ^ http://www.ghosts.org/faq/bloodymary2.html
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Beyond: Bloody Mary Legend - Speculating the truth of the Bloody Mary urban legend, and an ongoing Bloody Mary Legend archive.
- The Face in the Mirror is an article with information about the various Bloody Mary ghost legends.
- Myths Over Miami - The supernatural Bloody Mary and related legends among homeless children in south Florida.
- Bloody Mary FAQ at ghosts.org
- The Legend of Bloody Mary
