Chambers of the Occult - EP# 45 The Woman in the Mirror: Bloody Marry

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

Send us Fan MailBloody Mary: The Woman in the MirrorWe've all heard the legend. Turn off the lights, look into a mirror, and say Bloody Mary three times. But who exactly are we supposed to be summoning?In this episode of Chambers of the Occult, Pirri joins us as we dig into the history behind one of the world's most famous urban legends. From Queen Mary I of England and centuries-old mirror rituals to similar ghost stories around the world, we're exploring where this legend came from and why it's still terrifying people today.We'll also look at the science behind why people swear they've seen something in the mirror.So, is Bloody Mary a real spirit, a ghost story that got out of hand, or something else entirely?Join us as we find out. Just maybe don't listen in front of a mirror.

Chambers of the occult may contain content that might not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. There's a reason people are afraid of mirrors at night. Not because mirrors change. Not because the glass becomes something different when the sun goes down, but because under the right circumstances, the face that stares back at you becomes something you don't recognize. Imagine this, it's just after midnight.

You're standing in a bathroom, the doors closed, the lights are off, and sitting beside the sink is a single candle. The flame flickers, casting shadows on the walls, and you can barely see yourself. Somebody told you a story about a woman who died a terrible death, a woman whose spirit never found peace. And according to that story, that woman doesn't haunt a cemetery.

She doesn't haunt the house where she died. She lives inside mirrors, waiting. If you want to see her, you have to call her name three times. You're not particularly superstitious. You don't believe in ghost. At least that's what you keep telling yourself.

But there's a certain curiosity that comes with being told that you're not supposed to be doing something. thing. So you look in the mirror and you whisper. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. You feel ridiculous. It's just the name, but you're already halfway through the ritual. So you say it again. Bloody Mary. Welcome back to Chambers of the occult. I am Jay and I have a special guest with me. Piri. Hi.

Hello. I'm real, I promise. Not a disembodied boys. But yeah, so I'm sure that most people at some point have heard the story or the legend of Bloody Mary.

And I'm surprised that I have not covered that on the podcast yet with anyone. So. No. Yeah, period. Tell us a little bit about you. Uh, uh, uh, I know, sorry to put you on the spot.

I lied. Uh, hi. I am an art history student, uh, down in Riverside and worked at Winchester over the summer. Yeah, that's how we met. It's like, yeah, that's how we met. It was great. It was wonderful. I want to go back.

I'm going to materialize at some point randomly wearing a full Victorian outfit and scare the shit out of you. We're going to look in one of the mirrors at Winchester and just say, Pierie, Pierie, Pierie, Pierie. Yeah. Then I'm going to show up binging my eyes at you. Yeah, that would be great. But yeah, so how much do you know the legend behind Bloody Mary? I don't actually know it at all. I just know like the ritual and that there's like, I don't, there is a queen nicknamed, I believe, Bloody Mary, but they're not the same.

Yeah. Did you ever actually try the legend as a kid? Like the ritual as a kid? No, I'm scared of the dark. I would not have survived that. Okay. Via my own stupidity. Yeah.

Let's see. Well, yeah. So, like, that's what's fascinating about this because everybody seems to know, like, the basic of, like, the story or, like, the ritual. Like, you stand in front of a mirror, you turn off the lights, and then you say Bloody Mary three times, and then, like, something is supposed to appear. But the moment you ask people to describe something, that's when, like, the entire story starts to fall apart. Because some people say that she's a witch. other people say that she's the ghost of like a murder teenager some people say that she's like the mother of someone who lost her child

and then like you mentioned some people mentioned that she was a queen and then other people say that like she's a creature like so badly like this figure that it's impossible to recognize her face so when people ask like what happens or like what appears like nobody seems to agree on that some people say that like they get scratch Some people say that they just hear screams. Some people say that like she'll show you the face of your future husband.

And then like, I was like, okay, so is this a horror story? I don't be very kind of her, I guess. Yeah, I was like, so. She a matchmaker? I mean, for me, it'd be a horror story. You're like, oh, no, a husband. Don't show me a man. Yeah.

No, I'm fine. And then some say that like, she'll show you how you're going to die. By a man. Yeah. By a man. No. Yeah. And then of course there's other legends that say that like...

James. Oh, do you want to show the people, James? Do you think she would show me him? Maybe. My sailor. For those of you that aren't watching the YouTube video, James, it's Puri's sailor. Sailor. My sailor.

Do you know? Tell us a little bit about... How you found your sailor? I am interested in learning about specific people during World War II, specifically just general soldiers, like ordinary people. I was walking through an antique store, and I saw just a guy on a shelf, and I felt very bad because he was just there alone. So I bought him, got him home, figured out who he was, and now he is framed and he sits online. my shelf. And his name is James, and I love him dearly. And he is my first of my sailors, because I have a great many now. He is well loved. And he's the only one who's actually framed. Everyone else is kind of sitting in a binder right now. But he's here. And I love that. James gets to join us.

He does always. He's always joining us in my heart. For a man, he's a great listener. He wonderful. He's a fantastic listener. Probably because he was in the Navy. Probably is why we get along so well. Is there more behind that, or are we going to leave it at that? If you know the joke, you know the joke. Okay, got it. So we're going to leave it at that.

Yeah. I think it's funnier if I don't say anything. Fair. Okay. But yeah, so the ritual for the whole Blood and Mary thing changes to. because I don't know how you knew it, but for me, I've always known it as, like, you say it three times. Yes. Some people say that it's five times.

Some people say 13 times, which I'm like, okay, now we're getting into like... That's a lot. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Some people say 47 times. You've got a whiteboard marking down how many times you've said it. Well, I was thinking a chalkboard because I'm like, I don't know where that starts. but, yeah, a whiteboard.

You just take a little, a dry erase marker, and you mark it on the mirror so she can count along with you, so she knows when to show up. We'll get to that one eventually. But I just think how strange this is. I'm like, if Blood and Mary was a ghost of like a specific woman, like, what did her identity change from like one town to another? Like, if she was a witch in one state and like a murder victim in another and a queen somewhere else, why did the number of repetitions matter in one version but not another? Interesting. And like, why does she always appear to be in one place where we're forced to confront our own reflection?

I come to terms with who you are as a person? I guess so. Well, because Bloody Mary isn't what, like, people just call a ghost story. She's what folklorists call, like, a ritual legend. And the story tells you that something supernatural exists. And then like the ritual gives you a way to test it. So like that's what makes it different from so many other like haunting stories. Because if I tell you that a woman in white wonders a cemetery, you might never visit that cemetery.

And if I tell you that a ghost haunts an abandoned mansion, you might never go inside. But if I tell you that there's a spirit in your bathroom, well, you already know where to find a mirror. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's get into the story of like the 47, like calling her name 47 times. 47 is a really specific number. curious to where that came from.

Yeah, because it's not it's not like a multiple of 13 it's, I don't know, I don't know, we'll get to it. I've never heard of the number 47 being Yeah So let's begin with one of the older documented versions of Bloody Mary It's not a medieval manuscript

It's not an actual It's not an account of an actual witch execution It's a piece of 12th century American folklore 12th 12th 12th 12th 12th 20th Sorry, I don't have dyslexia

I think it's just dark in my room Which numbers which numbers are in what order? Is it 112?0? I don't know. 20th century. Wow. Oh, we're so good at this. We're...

20th century. American folklore. 20th, yes. No. There we go. Don't worry about it. We got it. We can read.

We're good with numbers. Yes. We know what's going on. We've got this. Yeah, she's not that old. Yeah. Okay. Did you?

She's, yes. She's spry. That's why she jumps around so much. That's what I was going to mention. It's why she's everywhere. Yeah, she can go places, do things. She's not tired yet. No.

So in 1970, Debra Laverty recorded a version of the legend associated with Marshall County, Iowa. Her account is present in the Indiana State. University, folklore archives, and the woman at the center of the story was called Mary Worth. According to the legend, Mary Worth had been a witch. She had supposedly been burned at the stake. And somehow after her death, her spirit had become connected to mirrors. Now, let's establish

something like right off the bat. There's no verified. record in that account proving that a witch name Mary Worth was actually executed. What the archives preserve is the story that people were telling, but they're still valuable because it tells us that the legend was already circulating before the internet, before like TikTok and like Facebook and girl sleepovers. Yeah. But hold on, they might have had those in the 70s. I'm pretty sure they did have those in the 70s.

I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure they did have the... I want to know what year the word sleepover came along. Because I'm sure they probably had them, but they maybe didn't use that word for it. Maybe. I don't know. A lot of things you think have terms for them just didn't have them until people started combining words It's just

I'm curious now I want to go look it up Yeah Do we do should we look it up right now I'm looking it up See Don't show me an AI summary Show me

35 apparently Ah Okay So they had sleepover They did have sleepovers. Especially because this was 1970s. 1970s. So at this point, sleepovers were already a thing.

I mean, they were, the word. 30, 40 years. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Cool. That's actually really just a fun fact. Yeah.

Always learning new things. Yeah. Anyway, continue. Bloody Mary. Yeah. But yeah. there's no records that Mary Worth was actually a witch that was burned or executed,

but it's still like valuable information. They do mention that the people knew she had attempted the ritual. Oh, Lavertee, the person What's her name? Her name, her name. Deborah Laverty.

Deborah. I'm just going to call her Deborah. Deborah mentioned that people knew she had attempted the ritual, the Bloody Mary ritual. Some were frightened. Some believed that they had experienced something, and she offered a rather ordinary, possible explanation for something of their fear. The explanation was alcohol.

Yes. Don't worry. You were just drunk. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Apparently, their ritual had been performed at drinking parties. No, that sounds familiar, yeah. That's still done.

Which I'm like, can we call them drinking parties again? Like, hey, I'm having a drinking party. Just come over. We can start that. Yeah. We can do that. Can we have a drinking party when I come visit you next? Yeah.

Let's have a drinking party. Yeah. It'd be great. Well, then we can play Bloody Mary. We can see. Let's call her name 47 times. Field research. Yeah, field research. It'll be great.

I'll have the, um, the exo markers so we can keep track. Yes. Yes. The real challenge will be remembering how many times we've said it. It'll, it'll be great. Yeah. Just like bloody, wait, what number are we at? And then from the mirror, just you're at 43. Yeah, yeah.

Which is interesting though, because this like reminds us that this story is, weren't just like confide to like school children. Adults participated in this too. Anyone who's been around. Yeah. Anyone had that's stupid. Everyone's stupid. Yeah.

Yeah. Everyone is stupid because we're all curious. Yeah. I mean, the whole phrase is like curiosity to kill the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. Yeah. And anyone who's been around a group of people telling ghost stories late at night and knows how quickly fear can spread. So,

oh, yeah. Strangely, that's when variations comes from, like, strange variation comes from books published six years later. So this was in 1970s, and then in 1976, Mary and Herbert, Knapp published a collection of American children folklore, and then they described a version of the mere ritual involving Mary Worth

and the instructions were remarkably specific. A child was supposed to enter a dark bathroom, stare into a mirror, and repeat Mary Worth's name, not three times, not 13 times,

47 times. Where did they get 47? Did they do field research? Did they talk to a bunch of school children and go, we need each of you to a attempt to say this a different number of times and we'll figure out which one actually sees something and the 47th child walked into the bathroom and just started screaming their head off like how did they how did they land on 47 what happened honestly that's that is a great

question how did they do this how did what did you mean 47 so a lot and at what point would they like give up I was like nope it's it's just not going to work at what point does it stop feeling like you're saying a name and like you're just saying sounds. Yeah. Probably around like 15, you're like, I don't know anymore. Yeah. But yeah, the book said it, like the book ritual, right, said that you had to say 47 times. And if the ritual worked, according to the account, Mary would emerge from the mirror,

Karen, a knife. She was also described. Go ahead. Send a children to do this. sitting in there 47 times and then there's a lady coming out of the mirror. This was a children's folklore book. There's got to be better ways to test that, man. There's got to be better ways.

Okay, 1970s. I don't think there's many ideas to publish in children's books at the time. That's true. But I don't know. I don't know if they'd even have done that in the, they might have done it in the 20s. I don't know if they would have done it in the 40s. But in the 70s. In the 70s, they are a little bit more loosey-goosey.

From what I know, they're a little bit more loosey-goosey about that. Yeah. So, yeah, they described that she would show up with like a knife and having a wart on her nose, which is fascinating because it starts to sound less like the version of like a deceased queen, which we'll talk about in a bit as well. And it starts to sound like a long nose, the war, the weapon, like the frightening old woman. And like, where did that appearance come from?

Like, was it an older story? Did someone invent it to make her more frightening? Or, like, did children simply attach, like, a familiar witch imagery to, like, the ghost? We just don't know. It's just like, was it just a coincidence? Mary Worth was also the name of a long-running American newspaper comic strip character. So a perfectly ordinary fictional woman, not a ghost, not a witch, not someone behind bathroom mirrors, folklorists themselves remarked on the coincidence, but there's no reliable evidence

establishing that the comic strip character was the source of the supernatural legend. And it's just like a, hey, like, that's a strange coincidence. I hope she's getting royalties. Honestly. She deserves. She deserves. After all this publicity, she deserves royalties. Yeah.

I just don't know, to be honest, if walking into having a drinking party and then walking into a bathroom with the lights off and then saying Bloody Mary, 40, times would make it scarier. It would absolutely disorientate you because you wouldn't know how much time is passing. Yeah. So you're inebriated. And also like you have to keep track of 47 times. Yeah. Like three times anyone can do that. You don't know what's going on. Yeah. And it would be scarier for the people outside as well because their friend walked in there and it's been like 20 minutes and it's nothing. Mm-hmm.

To quiet You're just like Did they slip and die? Yeah Because I just think like What happened? The anticipation would make the entire experience. Yeah.

And like that's also like a major clue Because the ritual doesn't necessarily need to produce something supernatural. Sometimes waiting is just enough. Like that's part of like the fun or like, yeah. Yeah. what causes anxiety. We're not even touching on the fact that if you're standing in the dark

for long enough, you're going to see shit. Yeah. It's going to start happening. You just... And then a few years later, after the Iowa account was recorded, another folklorist found a version of Mary that was completely different.

Because in Indiana, Mary wasn't a witch. She was a dead girl standing beside a road. Really? She's not even in the bathroom. No. Well, I mean, that's like... She's escaped. Good for her. She got out. Good for her. She's moving to the next mirror.

This is true. She's got to get there somehow. I guess. You know, maybe all the, like, ghosts we see on the roads are just Bloody Mary trying to get to the next mirror. Yeah. But Bloody Mary is a costume they all wear. It's something they do for fun. Just a little cheap, little cheap spook while they're on their way to somewhere else. In Indianapolis, in 1973, folklorious, Janet, I'm going to butcher her last name.

Janet Langolus was investigating a legend known among school children as Mary Wales. Not Mary Worth, Mary Wales. So Janet conducted interviews with 80 students at Holy Angels and elementary school serving African American children in Northwest Indianapolis. And approximately 20 children had participated in the associated game. So among those stories, they told something particularly strange. A ghost story that seemed to have wandered from an entirely different location. Because imagine you're driving along a dark road, rain is pouring, nobody's outside,

and then you see someone standing near the road. A young woman dressed in white, her clothing is soaked, and then she appears to be waiting for somebody. Some people pull over. Sometimes she asks for a ride. She climbs onto the backseat, your typical story, you continue driving. And then if you look in the rearview mirror, maybe try to start a conversation,

but at some point, she's gone. The car door never opened. never stopped. There's no explanation of how she disappeared, but there's just a wet mark and a stain on the floor of your car. That could sound familiar because it's a variation on the vanishing hitchhiker that a lot of people across like different parts of the world will say they see. Like a lady in white, they give her a ride and she disappears in the back of their car. At that point, I think it's only polite for you to just take them to where they asked you to take them, even if they're not there anymore.

It's only polite. You can kidnap a ghost otherwise? Just let them go. It's fine. You're already there anyway. In this version, that passenger became associated with Mary Wales. And according to Janet's research, multiple stories collected from the children combined element of

Mary of Wales with vanishing hitchhiker narratives. And this is where it gets interesting. Because how does a ghost who disappears from the backseat of a car becomes a spirit who appears in bathroom mirrors? Because they're completely unrelated. A lonely road, a school bathroom, a ghostly passenger, and a dangerous apparition. But both stories involve an encounter with someone who shouldn't be there. And both depend on the same question. Did they release someone or did something else happen?

Janet was interested in whether the legend came before the ritual or the ritual came before the legend. So Janet wanted to know whether the children knew about Mary Wales and invented the game to summon her or if they were already playing. the mirror game and attach different ghost stories to explain who they were summoning. Hmm. Yeah. Of course, you know. Bloody Mary. Love you, but letty Mary.

What are you doing, girl? A million different hats. A million different jobs. Mm-hmm. Continue. Yeah, so she couldn't just, she just couldn't establish, like, a definitive answer. I mean, she was talking to children. Mm-hmm.

That's fair. It's kind of hard to get them to focus. But what if Mario Wales wasn't the original ghost either? Because the next clue takes us to a very different type of haunting. One where the ghost doesn't simply appear, but she punishes the people who summon her. In 1988, Folkloreist Simon J. Brunner published a collection of American children folklore, and one of the stories included had been collected from 1984 from an informant in Middletown, Pennsylvania,

which I just love how they say, yeah, I have an informant. And I'm like, it's a childhood story. By informant. It's a fairy tale story for children. It's great. I mean to start using more of those words again. Yeah. Classy ones.

My informant has told me. Mm-hmm. And in this version of Bloody Mary, well, in this version, it's much darker. According to the story, Mary had been murder in the woods behind Pine Road Elementary School. and the children believed her ghost could appear in a bathroom mirror, but this was no ordinary mirror challenge,

because the account included the symbolic exchange of blood. Children, please. I know. I know. Children. You're going to get blood poisoning, children. I was like, who was your informant for this? Because you should not have published this.

Hold on. Who told you? this. Who told you this? Don't do that. Yeah. But yeah, it was an exchange of blood followed by a declaration of belief in Mary. The blood doesn't do that? Mm-hmm. You think that the blood would be more of a declaration than saying the words. I guess I don't know. Yeah. So I'm not going to do a little reenactment for that because there's no reason for injuring yourself for a ghost story. But no. What matters is that, you know, they expect to see, like what the children expect to see afterwards. They expect to see like a

young girl, long hair, pale skin, and like blood streaming down her face from like an injury to her forehead. Now, considering what the legend says happened here, in Iowa, Mary was an executed witch in Indianapolis. she could have been a vanishing hitchhiker. And in Pennsylvania, she was a girl murdered behind a school. The location of the supposed crime was now local. And close enough to the children

that they might have been able to point towards the woods and say that's where she died. That's... She's over there. Yeah, that's more... That's a... That's a... That's effective storytelling, I would say.

That's a lot more specific. That's a lot more worrying to hear. If I was a parent and my child told me about that, I'd be like, okay, hold on. I'm going to go call someone. Yeah. Because it's one thing to say that somebody was murdered. Yes. Because if you say somebody was murdered somewhere long ago, that's something.

But it's different to say somebody was murdered right behind your school. That's, they're in completely different sides. Exactly. Suddenly, the ghosts belongs to your community. And the bathroom becomes more than a bathroom. Yeah. She's here. She lives here, I guess.

Mm-hmm. And then the children that become participants are being told that it's dangerous. And that's what I find especially, like, revealing about this, because it doesn't establish that a girl was actually murdered behind the school. It documents that such a story was being told. So there was like no documented murder behind the school, just a story. But there's a difference between those two things because there's also the punishment that came with the lore of this specific Bloody Mary.

because Bloody Mary attacks are almost as inconsistent as her appearance. In some variations, she scratches the person who summons her. In some, she leaves three marks. In some, she attacks people because they don't believe her. And sometimes, she attacks them because... Because they, she attacks them because they attack her first. Huh. So, like, self-defense, Mary?

Maybe. Good for her question mark? Yeah. I mean, at least she's not scratching people 47 times, but like. That is true. 40. Yeah. God.

She's got the whiteboard now, and she's like, okay, you call my name. 47 times one scratch for each. Which is more than the whole Lizzie Borden case. Yeah. And in one account, recorded from the Louisiana school tradition, the ghost was said to mark people who had committed sins. Was that everyone then? Yeah, which introduces something we haven't discussed before.

Judgment. Judgment. She's a dead girl. I, why did, why is she judging other kids for their sins, their kids, girl? Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm sure you died with some sins. It's like, stop, it's fine. Because in that version, Bloody Mary isn't just a monster.

She's become like a supernatural judge. Yeah, she's pissed that they're sinning and she can't sin anymore, I guess. I don't. Yeah, and I'm like, who are you to look at children and supposedly determine whether they've done something wrong? They're children. and of course they have. Yeah. It's like,

girl, you were a child once. Surely. It's, it's like, you've been told that if you do something evil, a ghost is going to mark you.

Like, okay. I've already done something evil since you said that. I don't, I'm, it's like, would have put the fear of God in them,

but the fear of Mary. Yeah. So the fear of Mary, grand the seas, Bloody. Not Mother Mary, the other one. Honestly, yeah. How do we think Mother Mary feels about this? She's sitting here like, you have, you've got to pick a new name. We can't be doing this.

So now children that, like, lied to a parent, sold something, or were like, or, like, pushed a friend. I'd start feeling guilty because they think that Mary's going to come after them if they do their ritual. So now they might be doing the right, the ritual as a test of innocence. Maybe. I mean, I thought church did that because you can get like absolved of your sins and then you can go and do Bloody Mary. Oh gosh, don't give them ideas. That was my first thought was, I can get absolved with my sins, go do Bloody Mary just summoning her account of the sin? I would be clean.

What would she do? She'd just like stare at me awkwardly and leave. She's like, you just kidding. She's just like, I, why'd you do that? I can't even do anything to you. Yeah. There's just, so many variations and like rules,

because if we focus on the rules, we also need to talk about a version of Bloody Mary where the haunting doesn't end when you leave the bathroom. Because some stories have consequences later, yeah. And this one actually comes from California. Oh! I know.

We're responsible for this. Yeah, we did this. We're doing the horrors now. No, it's us specifically. We, you and I, we're taking responsibility now. That's how this works. It's funny. Yeah.

So there's a folklore account from California that just shows how powerful belief can become. because a woman recalled participating in Bloody Mary with other girls while attending the St. Thomas at Aquinas School in Monterey Park. And the children entered the bathroom together. They gather near a mirror. They incorporate water into the ritual. And afterwards, they fled the bathroom. But according to the story, they had been told that the effects of Bloody Mary didn't necessarily appear immediately. A sign could come later.

A woman remembered something that happened after she had participated. She said that she was outside during recess, playing with a frisbee. She tried to catch it and injured her finger. He began bleeding. Oh, no. Now, normally, this is just a playground injury. Children get hurt. But because the girls had performed Bloody Mary,

they saw it as Bloody Mary had cost it. I don't, I'll be honest. I'd probably be a little skeptical, too, because how do you cut yourself on a frisbee? It's a frisbee. Yeah, I guess so. Like, how would they do that? Guys, it's a little plastic disc.

How hard would you throw in that thing? Also, I guess if you've played with Frisbee's before and it's never happened before, I guess it could kind of raise that suspicion. Yeah. I think the most I've done with a Frisbee is get hit in the face with it. And even then it didn't do anything. I just got Frisbee to the face. Yeah, I also have not bled from a Frisbee.

So now I don't want to think too much about it. No, it's frisbee. That's frisbe. Apparently, people get violent with frisbees. Especially, God, children with a frisbee is a nightmare. But yeah, so the supernatural event

didn't have to happen in the bathroom at all, or like, and in the bathroom at all. A scratching, nightmare, a broken object, something you misplaced, could all be signs of

Bloody Mary according to this. That if you're frightened enough, you might spend the rest of the day

searching for evidence that something was following you. But here's another example of how far folklore

could change that. And I don't like how close this is to home. Uh-oh. Um...

It's a-oh. Because this is in 1979 at a sleepover in Los Altos, California. Oh, my dad lives there. Yep. Do! Yep. So, yeah.

One girl learned a version of Bloody Mary that unfolded over three nights. Oh. Yeah. Extended. Extended release. Yeah. Just, dang. Not three repetitions, three nights. And according to the story, the haunting progressed. On the first night, a small spot of blood would appear in the mirror.

On the second night, a stain would grow. On the third night, the blood. the blood would supposedly form a face of a woman. So the haunting was gradual and didn't happen all at once. You're given time to anticipate what comes next. I guess it takes time to draw a human face

assuming that she's drawing it and not just putting her face in the mirror. I guess so. And if you also think about it, it's with blood. Yeah, blood is not. fun medium to work with, streaky. So, yeah. Also, how much blood do you need to draw human face?

It depends on what you're using. If you're using like a brush, then I think less than what you'd think. Well, it depends on how saturated you want the color. I was also thinking how detailed was the face. Yeah. would take would take a second

yeah yeah so a mark and it just grows into a face she's working on it honestly masterpieces take time just give her grace

yeah by the time of the third night you've just spent so much time thinking about that woman's face that you might be able to see it almost, that you might be able to see almost anything in that, like, blood. I'm sure that, like, you're probably just, like, I don't know, I don't know. A stain becomes an eye, a shadow becomes a nose, a reflection becomes a mouth. If you're suddenly having blood on your mirror, I think you might want to look into that. Also, why would you not tell your parents?

Or, like, are your parents not checking your mirror? Yeah. Your bathroom. They're walking in there, they're going, there's blood on your mirror, and you go, don't worry about it. And then they believe you and they leave. Like, what kind of parents are these? She's going to go, oh, okay. I have a nice night.

And then they walk away. No, the parents are going to be distressed. It was 70s, I guess. Yeah. Oh, she's up to her all shenanigans again. Oh, I remember talking to Bloody Mary. Yeah, no, she's doing her thing. Don't worry about it.

Yeah. It's fine. Mm-hmm. She'll scare the crap by the kids and then they'll go to bed on time. It'll be great. Yeah. It's the only way. It's how my mother did it.

And her mother before her. She's doing, it's that, she's going through that phase. Yep. Our dear family friend, Mary. Yep. She's helping us raise the kids. It's great. Yeah.

This was one of my favorite, like, details to, research because it just like reveals something like important about horror because sometimes it's like the anticipation of the preparation. It's like more frightening than the like apparition itself. Yeah. She's like, what's going to happen? Oh. Yeah. So we got the witch. We got the hitchhiker. We got the murder victim. We got the supernatural Mary judge. We got the artist. We got the artist. Yeah, let's call her the blood artist. Yeah. She's great.

Yep. And there's also the one we did, we have not investigated yet, the one that you mentioned earlier. The queen. Yes. The queen. Yes. So this was in England. The 16th century.

The Tudor dynasty. And then a period of religious conflict. a political intrigue, royal marriages, executions, and at the center of the story, a woman named Mary Tudor. Yes. Mary the first of England, born in 1516. Mary was the queen of King Henry, Roman numbers. Ah, I will get this. The eighth.

Tell me the letters. V-I-I-I-I. Yes, eight. Yes. And Catherine of Aragon. Catherine of Aragon. Oh, we love Catherine. Yeah.

She's cool. So, yeah, Mary, she was raised as a Catholic priest, princess. And her life changed dramatically when Henry saw to end his marriage to her mother. Henry desired to marry and believe. which I think at this point a lot of us know a bit of Henry's affairs some sort of tune about it, some sort of musical perhaps. I know, yeah. I don't know.

I just can't help. Just kind of want to sing about it. Very catchy, whatever is going on over here. But yeah, so in 1553, when her younger half-brother, Edward the 6th died, the succession became a crisis. There was an attempt to place

Lady Jane Gray on the throne. Mary refused to surrender her claim, support gather around her, and then she ultimately secured the crown. She became England. first queen regent, a woman ruling on her own, not merely as the wife of a king,

and then Mary believed that England needed to return to Rome. She returned papal, papal, papal, people, thank you, authority and revive laws against heresy. And under those laws, people who refuse to abandon prohibited religious beliefs could face death. And beginning in 1555,

a nice little number. Executions intensified. Protitants were arrested, tied, condemned, burned alive. History was dark. Mary, we can't be doing that. I know.

Mary, girl. By the end of Mary's reign, around 290 Protestants had been burned. It was a country divided by religion. And Mary persecutions became central to the reputation that followed her. Protestant writers helped immortalize the repatriation. reputation after her death. The name history would remember? Bloody Mary.

And that's where we separate history from horror. Mary was real. The executions were real. Religious persecution was real. But there's no demonstrated historical chain connecting those events to the modern bathroom mirror ritual. Yeah. And especially because if she were related to that, wouldn't it have something to do with the fire?

Yeah. She burned a bunch of people of the death. Mm-hmm. It's just they happen to have the same name, I guess. Yeah. People know the nickname. People know the queen. They assume the ghost must be her, but sharing the name isn't the same as sharing the origin.

So, yeah. That's, Mary's story becomes even more complicated when we investigate this, because, you Yeah, you know, Bloody Mary was the nickname given to her, but it's not necessarily the name of the ghost. She's doing her own thing over there. They're not, they're like on other sides of the street. Also, wouldn't you expect her to be wearing, you know, wouldn't people describe her wearing more of like a Victorian-Edwardian or, you know, more... 1500s. What kind of gown?

Tudor. Be a Tudor gown. Yeah. I think. I'm picturing. I know what they look like in my brain, because I've stared at a bunch of paintings of them recently. But people would make a comment.

It's like it looks like an old gown. It looks like royalty or it looks like she was fancy. Yeah. Unless she got, like, executed, in which case she might not be wearing that. But you did not say she got executed, so I don't think she did. She just did her own thing, and then she died. She did her own thing. Good for her question.

I don't know if. I can say that. Mary, girl, you did some weird things. We're not done with Mary quite yet. Because in 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain. And for Mary, the marriage carried

tremendous personal and political importance because England needed to secure succession, and Mary wanted a Catholic heir who would continue religious reforms. Without a child, the crown might eventually pass to her Protestant

half-sister Elizabeth. We can't have that. We can't have that, no, especially not when we burned all of her friends alive. Yeah. No. So when Mary began to believe that she was pregnant, this was news and it was extraordinary.

Oh, my God, a child. So... A baby. Her court prepared. her physicians watched her, plans were made for the birth of a royal child, and in the spring of 1555, Mary entered confinement at the Hampton Court Palace. A queen's confinement was not simply a private medical event. It was a carefully arranged royal location, the queen withdrew from public life, her household prepare for the birth, and the future

of a dynasty seemed to depend on what would happen next. Because if she dies, then it goes to the sister. Yep. If the baby dies, they have to try again.

If they live, the sister's fucked. Yeah. Unless she decides to kill the baby or her sister. Everyone was in danger of dying. Everyone was harmed in the making of this.

Honestly, yes. As everyone? Here's what happened. Days passed. Then weeks. But the expected child didn't arrive. There was still no baby.

But where is your baby? Eventually, Mary emerged from the confinement without given birth. Girl, are you still pregnant? What happened to her? So here's... She's just like, I'm going to go. have a baby. She comes like out. She's like, well, well, I'm still pregnant. It's not yet. Give it a couple more weeks. Pose alarm, everyone. It was just cramps, not construct. Yeah, yeah. She's just sitting there

like, yeah, no, I still got this baby. And they're all like, what can we see it? Yeah. He's real. I promise. Well, um, very. So for a queen who had, um, stock so much on becoming a mother, the disappointment was devastating. And later, in her reign, Mary expected another pregnancy. Again, no child was born. It was just...

Phantom pregnancies or miscarriages? Unfortunately, there was no modern medical records, so we can't determine the precise costs of what happened. What we do know is that like Mary believed she was expecting children And both episodes ended without an air So could have been phantom pregnancies Could have been miscarriages, stillborn

We just don't know But it happened twice Oh Yeah So in November 1558 Mary died and her half-sister, Elizabeth, succeeded her. Now they're Protestant.

Yep. The religious future, Mary had hoped to secure through a child, was unresolved. And part of the history becomes important because this is when we return to the ghost stories. Some modern versions of Blood of Mary portray her as a woman obsessed with missing a baby. Some rituals say that participants supposedly provoke the ghost by claiming to have harmed or stolen her child. Yes. That's not a good idea. No, don't be saying that to ladies.

Don't be saying that to her. That's a horrible idea. Yeah, because the idea is that Mary becomes enraged, that a grieving mother already suffering from an unimaginable loss, violently attacks anyone who mocks her. So connecting that to Mary's apparent pregnancies, it creates kind of like that supernatural backstory. If you're saying that the ghost of a pregnant lady who lost her kids, or a lady who lost her kids,

I think you deserve what's going to happen to you. I'll be honest. Don't be saying that to her. She deserves better. I know she did a whole lot of murdering, but you can't really be doing that. Two wrongs don't make her right. do not be telling her that you have stolen or killed her baby.

Like, don't, she, she's already not in the afterlife. She's already not seeing her baby. Do not make it worse. Mm-hmm. Well, we don't have any, like, evidence showing that, like, Mary's pregnancies were the origin inspiration for those ghost stories. But this is another story going out there, which means someone out there is doing that version of Bloody Mary.

Stop it. I don't do that. Please, God. It's a bad idea all around. Do the 47 version. Yeah, just do the 47 tallies. It is so much better.

It's healthier for everyone involved. Do not be talking about that woman's dead babies. It's not good. No. Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting, though, because this one also relates, like, it connects to the Mexican folklore of La Girona. I don't know if you've heard

Yeah, yeah And like I've heard of Like a couple years ago I don't remember a whole lot But I know of Yeah it's a very similar story Of a woman that lost her child

I now haunts a certain area as well Yeah But there's also A different queen Whose death resembles That image of Mary as well So she's not the only queen that might be haunting the mirror.

They're all queens, but continue. They ought to hear more. In February 8th, 1587, let me not butcher this name. I believe in you. Futher in Hay Castle

in England. A woman is brought to an execution chamber. She's a queen, but not the same queen we've been discussing. This is Mary Queen of Scots. Yes, Mary Queen of Scots. Yep. I know of her, I know of her.

And unlike Mary the First of England, she will die of execution. Mary Queen of Scots has endured years of political upheaval. She has been forced to advocate the Scottish throne. She fled to England where she spent nearly 19 years in captivity. Her claim to the English throne made her a threat to Elizabeth I. And on February 8, 1587, she was beheaded. Which brings us back to the disturbing variation of the mere legends. Which brings us back to California.

More California? Yeah. In a California account preserved by Alan Dunes, children described Bloody Mary as a headless woman wearing white. She supposedly carried a blood knife in one hand and in the other one, her own head. Well, I guess she needs to see what she's doing. Yeah, but that does sound more like Mary Queen of Scots than Mary the first of English. England. Yeah.

Because Queen of Scots was beheaded. Once again, this doesn't prove that Mary Queen of Scots inspired either legend. It's just, once again, that folklore. They both lived during the Tudor period. They were both entangled in

religious conflict. One acquired the nickname Bloody Mary. The other one was executed by beheading. But what if we're looking at the wrong century, because we've been investigating royal deaths and supposed witches. There's another tradition that may help explain the mirror itself, and it predates both the familiar Bloody Mary games by generations.

So let's travel back to the 19th century. Because long before children were chanting Bloody Mary's, Bloody Mary, it was. school bathrooms, people were already using mirrors to attempt to predict the future. This practice belonged to a broader family of divination traditions. Divination involved in a mirror often called, I'm going to butcher this. Catto... Catoptromancy. The general idea is just that the reflective surface can reveal something

that ordinary sight can't like hidden truths, the future, a spirit. So in one of the stories comes from 1896 where folklorist Fannie Dickerson published a collection called current superstitions

collected from the oral tradition of English-speaking folk. And in one tradition, a person would go down a cellar, stairs, backwards looking into a mirror, which is already dangerous on its own. Guys, you gotta be so careful doing that, guys. Yeah.

That is how you become a ghost. That is how you become the things in the mirror, okay? Yeah. You're holding the mirror with, I'm not imagining this is a small mirror because handheld mirrors are more of a nuisance. Big mirror down the stairs backwards. This was from 1896, so yeah, that was probably not too, yeah.

I guess if you're doing ghost stories, you might be rich anyway because you have the free time to do this bullshit and you have a cellar, you have your own home. Mm-hmm. Are you looking up? No, no, it was just that. Like, you walk down the cellar stares backwards looking into a mirror because they were supposed to see the face of, once again, a few. future husband reflected over their shoulder. So it was mostly women. Is he meant to catch you?

That did this. What's he going to do? Like, you're seeing him over your shoulder. Is he going to fucking catch you? Is he going to save you from falling down the stairs and dying? What's going to happen? It's useless. Yeah.

Useless. See your husband. Now die. See your husband. See what you could have. Now perish. Yeah. In another version, someone was supposed to enter a room with a candle, a clock, and an apple.

Why, is the apple for like if she gets hungry or something? It's a great combination. You're like, what do you do with these three items? The candle? Okay, the clock. Okay. Okay, sure. The apple. Why? Midnight's there? Hungry?

Yeah. At midnight. Is it a gift for her? The face of a future spouse would supposedly appear. Now imagine participating in one of those customs. Well, because it's just those things. Like, you were supposed to go? Yeah.

Yeah. It's just weird. You're just bringing all these random items. Everyone bring an apple. Okay. Quick. We only need one. Everyone gets to eat the other apple.

apples. I don't... Yeah. It's... I want to get a copy of this book and just read it. Yes. Yes. But yeah, so imagine participating in one of those, like, one of those customs. You're alone, late at night, and, like, you're staring into the mirror. Probably not to see your future husband. But maybe the... The future wife? Yeah. Let's...

Yeah. Mary? Mary? Mm-hmm. Mary? Not judgment, Mary? Well, it's fine, I went to church. Mary?

I sure I was clean so I could ask you on a date. Yeah, but once again, it's those customs that are telling you that, like, you're going to see someone else's face appear. Like, it's starting to sound like the Bloody Mary experience. But it's a different, like, ritual. Like, instead of like a frightening spirit, you're supposed to get a glimpse of your romantic future. I guess that could be a horror. Yes, especially if you don't get who you want.

Yeah, just be like... And in certain variations, warned of ominous image associated with deaths, like a skull, coffin, a suggestion that a person performing the ritual might die before marrying. So they're like, hey, you can do this. You're going to see the face of your future husband, but you're going to die before you get to marry them. Here is the price you pay.

You get to know who you're going to have, but you don't get to meet them until after. Yeah. Capit. Mm-hmm. No. None of these are good deals. No.

Just stop it. No. Just don't. Get some help. Leave her alone. Just leave her alone. She deserves to be left alone. She's fine.

By early 12th. By early 20th century, American newspapers were still describing Halloween mirror customs. Because a 1915 newspaper account discussed a woman entering a dark room with a candle, eating an apple, and expecting to see her future husband over her shoulder. The apple really was for a snack. Yeah. I don't know why I was like, they're going to do something with the apple. It's not going to be a snack.

why would they have it as a snack? No, it just genuinely is a fucking snack. What is this? Why does it have to be the... Bring something else? Oh, no? But it doesn't work if it isn't an apple. You can't bring a pear.

You can't bring an orange. Why? You can't bring a tree. I don't know because it's mentioned in the Bible. I don't know. This isn't this isn't. judgment, Mary, this is something else. Why is she still working with

Bible logic? That is true. That is true. Unless it is. She either judges you or she matches you. She has two interests. It depends on her mood. Yeah. Yeah. She's just like,

yeah, fun. And then in 1914, it looked good. It looked good, yeah. No, is it a red apple or a green apple? green green apples are good they love green apples yeah and in

1914 there was another newspaper that described looking into a glass divination accompanied by a spoken charm so all this different marries all this different types of summonings all this different variations

like a mirror is just a doorway but let's go to Spain because in Spain there's an urban folklore there is a supernatural figure who shares

quite a few similarities with Bloody Mary she's commonly known as Veronica not Mary okay they're okay and although the legend

resembles the American Miracle ritual, her backstories have developed into her own features. One of the most detailed, like, scholarly investigations was conducted by Alejandro Gonzalez Terrisa in research published in the early 2000s. He examined variations of the Veronica Legend collected from Spain children and adolescents, including accounts gathered in Madrid during the late 1990s. And what he discovered sounds very familiar by now. Veronica doesn't have an origin story.

Sometimes she's a young woman who died tragically. Sometimes she's a murder victim. Sometimes her death is considered to be a failed romance. And in several versions, a pair of scissors becomes especially important. So here's one of the story patterns. Worry about what these scissors are being used. I'm concerned about that. So yeah, so just imagine a young woman sitting at her dressing table late at night.

Her name is Veronica. She has been preparing herself for an evening. Her hair is arranged carefully. A mirror stands in front of her and nearby lies a pair of scissors. Somebody enters a room. A man. Somebody once who loved her. Someone she rejected.

And in this version, he cannot accept that their relationship has ended. An argument begins, he becomes angered, he attacks her with the scissors, and Veronica collapses. The man turns away, but then he notices something in the mirror. Her reflection is moving. He looks towards the body, and the reflection no longer seems to be matching what's happening in the room.

The dead woman is looking at... Get his ass, girl. Get his ass, girl. The dead woman appears to be looking at him, and according to the legend, death has not prevented her from taking revenge. Good.

Good. Good. Good for her. Yeah. And another story, Veronica said to have taken her own life. Like, she was killed by another person. Others say that she took her own life. Some traditions use a religious book, others involve spoken incantation to call her out. Some don't even require a mirror at all.

Some just say that the important thing is not the exact arrangement of objects that you use. It's the recurring idea that ordinary domestic objects can be used to contact a woman who died violently. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. So there's the similarities between like Blood and Mary, a female spirit, a tragic or violent death, inconsistency and identity, a ritual that can be repeated by children,

or anyone really, and the fear that a supernatural presence might answer. But there's also the differences. Veronica legends are particularly associated with scissors. Blood and Mary are with blood and mirrors. and the stories can influence once another. And one of the details that I find interesting about Veronica's story is that some of her stories involve the reflection acting independently of the person being reflected.

Interesting. Which, yeah, brings us back to the most frightening possibility of the Bloody Mary thing. like, what if your reflection does something that you didn't do? High five, I guess I'm leaving the room. Good luck. You're on your own, sorry. Yeah. But...

My reflection starts pointing behind me while I'm not pointing. I'm leaving. Goodbye. Nope. Yeah. And those are kind of like the stories that we have for Bloody Mary because it's just kind of wild. if you like think about it

when was like the last time you looked in the mirror for me it was probably just like a few minutes ago like before we started recording yeah um

what did we see yourself obviously yeah it's what the mirror is supposed to show you like we trust it but Bloody Mary asks us to consider like something impossible like

what if the reflection changes what if somebody else appears what if you can't trust it anymore Exactly. What? Yeah. Yeah. It's like everything is reflective, too.

So like that's... And what's the true origin of Bloody Mary? The witch, the queen, the murdered woman, Veronica. Is she Spanish? Is she Spanish? Yeah. Which of the Marys is it? Mary queen.

Is she a Mary? Yeah. Is she a Mary? Is she even a Mary? Or is that just someone, someone said, no, your name is Mary. And she said, oh, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. So after everything that we just kind of talked about tonight, what do you think Bloody Mary is? A historical woman, a collection of unrelated stories, or just something else entirely? I think she's probably something that people should stop teasing. Dead. People should stop telling her that they have her dead baby and that they, like, they should stop asking her for love advice. I think they should just leave her alone.

Yeah. I don't think it matters what she has. I think they should stop. I think she should leave her alone. She's had enough. I think also she would really like a sleepover. Yeah. An alcohol party.

Is that what they called him? A drinking party. Drinking party. Sleepover drinking party. I think we should invite her to one. Mm-hmm. I think she would enjoy that. Call her name 47 times.

Yes. We can get the lieutenant to help. Yes. If you can get the cat to help, it'll be great. Yeah. Well, to everyone listening, I have a question for you. Oh. Have you ever tried the Bloody Mary?

And if you have, did you see anything? because we'd love to hear those stories and whether you believe in the legend too. So, right in, let us know if you've tried the Blood of Mary, if you experience anything, and we'll share them here on the podcast, too. I'm going to attempt that later after I get off this call. Yeah, no, don't.

I don't know. I'll say it 47 times in the mirror, and we'll see that if I can annoy her or Fair. If anyone can annoy her here, it'll be me. I'm annoying. James and I will go do it. James, yeah.

He's back. What if you're like walking down the cellar with a mirror, backwards with a mirror, and then you just see James. I just see, not James the person. I see James the photo. Yeah, yeah.

It's like, ah, yes, it'll be great. And then I tumble down the stairs and I die. Oh, no, you're like, I knew it. And you're like, ah. I knew it. The only man for me has been dead for 18 years. Oh, wow. Yes.

Okay. He died in like 2008. He's been dead for a while. Yeah. It's great. He's here. He's, he's. He died in 2008, but he's still right with me.

That's my sailor. Wait, wait. Give us a good, good, good show, James. A little higher? Yeah. Ah, James. Great lashes. Yes, he's very pretty.

He's, his beautiful brown eyes. It's great. You gotta love him. That is all purity, though. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes, it was great having you.

And if the listeners would like to stalk you, where can they find you on socials? I don't have any of those. Great, so they can't stock you. They can't stock me, no. I only exist in museums. If you find me, take a photo and make sure I'm not a ghost. There we go. And then you can frame her.

Yeah. You can frame them too. You have to take a photo of James and stick him right next to me, though. It has to happen. Yes. It's the only way I won't walk out of the photo or off. You'll have me loosen your home. Thank you, Piri.

It was great having you. Thank you, Jay. Have a good night. You too. Take care. Bye. You too. Bye.

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