Lock your doors, draw the curtains, grab a crucifix, and pray the lights don’t go out. Yes, it’s that time of year again, time for tricks and treats, ghouls and goblins, haunted houses, and old urban legends that live on to spook the few daredevils who are brave enough to test them.
Out of all the urban legends ever told, Bloody Mary continues to reign during the “Season of the Witch.” Legend has it that if you stand in front of a mirror with the lights off and chant “Bloody Mary, Bloody Marry, Bloody Mary” over and over again, a horrific apparition will loom right before your eyes. Dating as far back as the early 1960s, the Bloody Mary legend can be explained through numerous myths. Myths that all began with a mirror.
Perhaps the most well-known myth of mirror divination is shown in the fairy tale Snow White. Snow White’s stepmother, an evil and vain Queen who took over the kingdom after the death of Snow White’s father, was a woman who refused to have anyone’s beauty surpass hers. So every morning she stood in front of her magical mirror and said: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?” To this the mirror replied: “You, my queen, are fairest of all.” For those who have watched this tale or read its many versions, the mirror-infatuated queen was finally ruined by her own vanity. This is just one example where basic elements of the Bloody Mary legend occur.
Myth number two comes from the British Isles. During the witching hour, the British would gaze into a mirror and perform a nonverbal ritual that would call for a great vision of one’s future betrothed. This myth is supported by the poems of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet and lyricist. In 1787 Burns wrote: “Take a candle, and go alone to a looking glass; eat an apple before it, and some traditions say, you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.” Notice that candles, apples, faces, and mirrors are all present in this verse, and are all objects associated with Halloween.
Apparitions are by far the most chilling myth in the connection to the legend of Bloody Mary. According to an old nineteenth-century English saying, the Devil is sure to appear before the eyes of those who stare into a looking glass too long. The depth in this superstition claimed that mirrors should not be visible in the presence of the dead. However, if a mirror(s) was present, it must be completely covered and out of sight. This was to signify an “end to all vanity.” The connection between this myth and Bloody Mary is the apparition in the mirror. In the former example, the ghost appears because someone failed to cover the mirror while in the latter, the ghost is purposely called upon.
While the tale of Bloody Mary is most obviously identified through the frolic of magic, it is also a scary ghost story of a young girl named Mary Worth. Once a ravishing young woman, Mary’s beautiful face became terribly disfigured after a gruesome, bloody accident. After the accident Mary could not bare to look in the mirror again, but because of her self-obsession, she was forced to appear before those who summoned her.
Whether fact or fiction, mirrors have been said to show something deeper than reflections. They are portals to another dimension, a dimension so eerie it may have you looking beyond the glass. So the curious question is posed: Is Bloody Mary real or fake? Go to a bathroom, turn off the lights, and repeat her name. You just may see her disfigured, bloody face emerge through the looking-glass. Do you dare?
(Sarah Herrera may be reached at sarahrebecca@dusty.tamiu.edu)