Watch the Mirror
/When I was younger, a group of friends wanted to try a spooky game in front of a bathroom mirror. Since we were all gathered together at school, we figured we’d try it there in an old bathroom with flickering lights, creaky stalls and one hell of a cold draft.
The main person who wanted to try this had us all gather in the corner, in the background, while they stepped up in front of the mirror, spun around three times, gazed at their reflection and chanted these words…
“Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.”
PHOTO CREDITS TO @TONIOPREA ON UNSPLASH
The urban legend of Bloody Mary is quite the famous one. It’s been adapted into many stories, including onscreen, and usually depicts a horror-filled outcome or at least a bloody woman in the mirror. But the original game didn’t start out quite so morbid.
The Bloody Mary game derived from something that was popular during olden days. Unmarried women would walk up a staircase backwards holding a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other. The objective was to glimpse the face of their future husband. But they also risked glimpsing a skeleton, said to be the face of the Grim Reaper himself, which signified that the woman would die before she’d get a chance to wed.
Despite that one origin, there are many other theories or combinations that have led to the haunting version of the Bloody Mary we have today.
PHOTO CREDITS TO @AVALONTREE ON PIXABAY
I was glad to be huddled with my friends as the room grew colder and colder. And though we stayed like that for a while, nothing really seemed to happen. Things got creepier the longer anticipation built, but children only have a certain length of attention to give, and we soon found ourselves filing out of the creepy bathroom to go where we were supposed to be… on our lunch break.
The problem was, I forgot my lunchbox in the big room attached to that small bathroom. And since none of my friends wanted to trek back with me, I had to take the route by myself, braving the creeps all on my lonesome.
I had just enough time to get to my lunchbox when I heard a very peculiar sound, and not one I’ll soon forget. It was glass shattering. And not just any glass…
It was the Bloody Mary mirror.
PHOTO CREDITS TO @CREATIFRANKENSTEIN ON PIXABAY
The figure Bloody Mary is thought to be based on a couple different people. Not all of them are proven to be true, but one in particular was a real-life person. She was Queen Mary I of England, and she struggled over the course of her married life with getting pregnant despite showing signs that she was carrying a child. This was believed either to be a phantom pregnancy—a pregnancy that occurs when the desire to have a baby is so strong, it convinces the body that a pregnancy is really happening—or endometrial hyperplasia, something that develops before uterine cancer and gives similar symptoms as pregnancy. Since the medical field of her time wouldn’t have been able to truly test the difference, it’s unclear what she was experiencing for sure, or if it was a combination of things.
But the reason she was given the name “Bloody Mary” was because of an act she signed which led to the Marian Persecutions. Mary thought she’d be uniting the people of England—who were strongly divided between Catholics and Protestants at the time—by signing the act. But she didn’t foresee the persecutions that followed, where approximately 300 people were sentenced as Protestants to burn at the stake. Mary believed that God was punishing her through miscarriages and false pregnancies for failing to unite her people.
PHOTO CREDITS TO @SARAHRICHTERART ON PIXABAY
I didn’t wait to investigate when I heard the sound of a mirror shattering from the bathroom. I booked it like my life depended on it, and for all I knew, it did. I never went back to find out what happened. In fact, I think I steered clear of that bathroom for the rest of the school years I spent in that building.
Maybe you don’t believe in Bloody Mary, and maybe you do. Some of you might believe she’s a scary ghost, others may believe she’s fairly friendly. But I didn’t know much about her as a kid. And even if I do now, I won’t be taking any chances. The last thing I need is Bloody Mary paying me another visit to break my mirrors.
For a different and darker take on the origins of Bloody Mary, click here.
PICREW RIGHTS BELONG TO @COZMICCHU, DESIGN BY KORPSE
Korpse
“Where does time go?” is a question we often ask ourselves, and though Korpse might be an unfamiliar name, he’s no stranger to asking himself the very same question. In fact, he asks that question when he can’t find time to research mythology in its many forms. But fear no more, for Korpse has found a balance in the making, and will share his findings with you about paranormal myths, legends, stories and more.
