Invoking Bloody Mary

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Bloody Mary has been invoked by many names, Mary Worth, Hell Mary, Mary White or Mary Jane, however the fate of all those who call upon her have always been terrible indeed. Identified as an evil spirit, her tale emerged from British folklore in the 1700s, and took on a new vengeful twist with the advent of the Internet in the 1990s.

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Queen Mary I (1516-1558) would later in her reign be known as Bloody Mary

Invoking Bloody Mary by one person, or a group is done by chanting her name into a mirror placed in a dimly lit room. Her name must be called 13 times, and her apparition will appear looking like a bloody corpse, a witch or a ghost that could be either friendly or demonic. Bloody Mary is said to scream, curse, scratch out eyes, strangle or steal the participant's soul.

One of the variants of this urban myth is Mary Worth. This reference dates back to 1970, when there was "magical tale" making the rounds at parties. The story was about a witch named Mary Worth, who was burned at the stake after accusations of witchcraft were levied against her. This supposedly happened around the time of the Salem witch  trials. The idea was to go into a darkened room by yourself with a single candle, and that if you stared into a mirror and said "Mary Worth" 13 times she would appear in the reflection.

What is doubtful about this tale being accurate, is that persons accused of witchcraft in the United States were never burned, they were hung.

There is the historical figure of Queen Mary Tudor I, daughter of King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon.  She received the moniker of "Bloody Mary" due to executions carried out under her five-year reign, in which she tried to return England to Catholicism again. In truth her father's reign was bloodier, including the execution of two of his queens, but considering that Protestants ran the country from then on, efforts were made to describe her this way, and smear her image as much as possible.

Fast forward to modern times, when during the 1990s chain letters began circulating online via emails, describing how the ghost of Mary kills anyone who summons her. In other versions, she merely scares the wits out of them. The following was one of the first to appear online in 1994: 

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​When I was about nine years old, I went to a friend's for a birthday/slumber party. There were about 10 other girls there. About midnight, we decided to play Mary Worth. Some of us had never heard of this, so one of the girls told the story. Mary Worth lived a long time ago. She was a very beautiful young girl. One day she had a terrible accident that left her face so disfigured that nobody would look at her. She had not been allowed to see her own reflection after this accident for fear that she would lose her mind. Before this, she had spent long hours admiring her beauty in her bedroom mirror. One night, after everyone had gone to bed, unable to fight the curiosity any longer, she crept into a room that had a mirror. As soon as she saw her face, she broke down into terrible screams and sobs. It was at this moment that she was so heartbroken and wanted her old reflection back, she walked into the mirror to find it, vowing to disfigure anybody that came looking for her in the mirror. After hearing this story, which was told very scarily, we decided to turn out all of the lights and try it. We all huddled around the mirror and starting repeating 'Mary Worth, Mary Worth, I believe in Mary Worth.' About the seventh time we said it, one of the girls that was in front of the mirror started screaming and trying to push her way back away from the mirror. She was screaming so loud that my friend's mom came running into the room. She quickly turned on the lights and found this girl huddled in the corner screaming. She turned her around to see what the problem was and saw these long fingernail scratches running down her right cheek. I will never forget her face as long as I live!" 

Scrying into a mirror on Halloween would supposedly show your future betrothed.

During the early 1960s, Bloody Mary emerged as an adolescent party game, where a ghost haunts a mirror. The connection between this phantom, the British queen with the same name, Mary Worth of comic strip fame and Mary Worth of legend is unknown.

Folklorist Alan Dunes suggests the game of Bloody Mary is a metaphor for puberty in girls. Others point to an overactive imagination as the origin. "Nominal realism" is the term used by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, which is found in folklore about the magical properties of mirrors. This dates back to ancient times. An example of this is the superstition of seven years bad luck if a mirror is broken.

Scrying into a mirror is supposed to allow the person to see the future. In the Bible (1 Corinthians 13) as "see[ing] through a glass, darkly." Looking glass divination is mentioned in Chaucer's Squire's Tale written in 1390, Spenser's The Faerie Queen (1590) and Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606) among others.

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Comic book cover of Love Stories of Mary Worth #2 November 1949

Another version of this was when a young woman would walk up a flight of stairs backward, while holding a handle and a hand mirror inside a darkened house. Gazing into the mirror they would see one of two visions: either the face of their future husband, or a skull indicating they would die before marrying. In some Halloween cards there is a shadow in the background with the outline of a witch with her pointy hat and broom, suggesting that this act of looking into a mirror is witchcraft.

Scottish poet, Robert Burns wrote in 1787 of how standing before a mirror, eating an apple and holding a candlestick will invoke a spirit.

This is similar to the fairytale of Snow White written by the Brothers Grim and published in 1812. Snow White's stepmother is beautiful and practices witchcraft. Her prized possession is a magic mirror which she asks every morning, "Looking-glass upon the wall. Who is fairest of us all?" She is always the one named by the mirror, which is unable to lie. Then one day when her stepdaughter is 7 years old, the mirror names Snow White as the fairest in the land. The queen who is enthralled to the mirror and her own vanity, orders the murder of a child by her huntsman. She orders him to bring her heart as proof she is dead, and also to eat it. The mirror is the one to inform the queen that Snow White is not dead, and also where to find her.

It's not a stretch to see that whatever spirit inhabits the mirror is quite evil.

In 1883, a book of folklore described the fallacy of vanity and the use of a mirror:

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When a boy, one of my aunts who lived in Newcastle-on-Tyne used to tell me of a certain girl that she knew who was very vain and fond of standing before the looking glass admiring herself. One night as she stood gazing, lo! all of her ringlets were covered with dripping sulphur, and the devil appeared peeping over her shoulder.

Illustration of Snow White's evil queen with her mirror c.1913

Another connection to the Bloody Mary myth is an American newspaper soap opera-style strip named Mary Worth that was a spinoff from an older comic strip, Apple Mary which dates from 1934, and features the character "Apple Mary" Worth. This comic ran for 80 years, and dealt with subjects dear to a young woman's heart such as romance and marriage.

There is also the character Bloody Mary from Tales of the South Pacific (1946) written by James Michener, which was made into a musical in 1949 and a film in 1958. She is a Vietnamese woman brought to the island by a French planter. She was a bootlegger who traded with Marines during World War II. The reason for her name was her mouth appeared to be bloody since she chewed  on betel nuts. Some say the character was a composite of real people, however it's said the "real Bloody Mary" lived on the island of Espiritu Santo for years after the end of the war, and died at the ripe age of 102.

Using a mirror for scrying goes back to ancient times. The witches of Thessaly who date as far back as 8 B.C. would use polished surfaces called specularii to scry into the past or future, and would then write their predictions in blood.

Another superstition is that mirrors should be covered or turned to the wall when someone in the household has died. This is said to signify "an end to all vanity", as well as respect for the dead. There is also a belief the soul of the departed can be trapped in it. ​This was practiced across the world including in England, Scotland, America, China, Madagascar, the Crimea and Bombay. 

Other cultures believe the mirror will reflect the "shadow soul" or the real nature of the person. Perhaps this is why vampires are described as not casting a reflection in one.

In 2010, a study was carried out by Dr. Caputo of the University of Urbino, in which the participants were asked to stare into a mirror for 10 minutes with dim lighting around them. The results were: a deformity in their face (66%), a monstrous face (48%), an unknown person (28%), an archetypal face (28%), a face of a parent or relative (18%) and an animal face (18%).

​There's another spirit known as Bloody Mary as well, which is made of a jigger of vodka, 3 oz. tomato juice, 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice, 4 drops Worcestershire, 1 dash salt, 1 dash pepper. Shake well with cracked ice and serve. 

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