Bloody Mary - Is She in Your Mirror?

Remember as a child... someone dared you to say her name three times in front of a mirror? Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody... I can't even type it three times. I never saw her, but she scared my siblings, cousins, and I silly on more than one occasion. It was the dare of all dares and as we took turns going in the bathroom alone... lights off... it would be only seconds before the victim trying to complete the task would come screaming bloody murder from the bathroom.

As many times as we tortured ourselves with the ghost of Bloody Mary, I never once heard her story or knew anything about who she was. As the neighbor boy dared my daughter to eat a bug, I thought of dares in general and the many times we dared each other into the bathroom to summon Bloody Mary. I decided to see what her story was. One version goes something like this.

Bloody Mary was said to be a witch. She sold herbal remedies to make her living and lived in a small cottage set way back in a forest. People in a nearby village were frightened of her and feared angering her, believing she could do many terrible things such as make their children sick or make their cows stop producing milk..

In time, the little girls from the village began to vanish. Their families, struck with enormous grief, began to search for them. Unfortunately, the little girls were nowhere to be found. No houses or barns or building were left unchecked, they searched high and low, near and far. But, still no sign of the girls. A few of the braver villagers even searched the witch's cottage... still no sign of the missing girls. Bloody Mary claimed to have no involvement.

Her claim wasn't believed by the people of the village. Bloody Mary's appearance made a drastic change. No more was the scary, haggard woman they were all scared of. She looked young and pretty, but even still, there was no evidence that she'd done anything to the girls.

One night, as the Miller's wife sat in the kitchen with a toothache, she watched in horror as her daughter, who seemed to be in a trance, walked out of their home. She took off after her as she screamed for her husband and together they tried to hold the girl back, but she kept breaking free.