General Information About Item:

• Type of Lore: Customary, Superstition
• Language: English
• Country: United States
• Informant: Brianna Aubrey
• Date Collected: 5/30/20

Informant Data:

• Brianna is a sophomore at Dartmouth College. She lives with her family in New Hampshire, near Hanover. She is interested in neuroscience and also sings in an a capella group on campus.

Contextual Data:­

• Cultural Context: The informant believes she might have heard this superstition for the first time as a kid while others were telling ghost stories at sleepovers. One of the popular stories was about Bloody Mary, and it stuck with her. She speculates that the initial conception of the superstition might have been through “chain emails,” emails that promise the recipient some sort of (usually supernatural) harm unless they forward the email to some number of other recipients.
• Social Context: As mentioned above, Bloody Mary was encountered by the informant as part of a scary story that she heard as a child. This superstition was probably passed along through the practice of telling ghost stories, common among children.

Item:

• If you say “Bloody Mary” three times while looking in a mirror and then spin around, Bloody Mary (some vaguely defined ghost or spirit) will appear and kill you.

 

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

 

Transcript:

• Informant: “So it’s basically like – it’s an old wives tale or whatever – it’s… so if you like look in a mirror and you say “Bloody Mary” three times and you turn around or something – I don’t know what the original thing is – but I’ve sort of adapted it into just I have a fear of mirrors when it’s dark”
• Interviewer: “Okay, so I guess there’s the original superstition of some kind of Bloody Mary thing”
• Informant: “Yeah and she’s supposed to appear behind you and it’s like this creepy murder girl whatever with blood all over her”
• Interviewer: “So is she supposed to murder you or…”
• Informant: “I think she murders you or she just shows up behind you and it’s scary”

Informant’s Comments:

• The informant mentions that she doesn’t really remember the original superstition, only that it has made her afraid of mirrors

Collector’s Comments:

• This superstition is an odd one, in that it is very closely linked to what might be an urban legend (especially if the informant is correct in speculating that the story originated through chain emails). While the fear of mirrors to avoid the wrath of Bloody Mary is certainly a superstition, the story of Bloody Mary itself probably falls into the category of a legend. This furthers the observation that folklore’s categories are not harshly defined, or even mutually exclusive – they are more of a cross-genre matrix of mutually influential bits of lore.

Collector’s Name: Ted McManus

Tags/Keywords:

• Bloody Mary, Superstition, Legends, Urban Legends, Ghosts, Ghost Stories