Brief Summary: The Legend Of Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary goes by many names in folklore including Mary Worth, Mary Worthington, Mary Whales, Mary Johnson, Mary Lou, and Mary Jane, just to name a few (Brunvand, 1988). Though the origins of this particular myth remain elusive, the original legend seems to be a form of “the vanishing hitchhiker” where Mary is a woman who has been in a car accident and in need of help, usually having a mangled or scratched face (Brunvand, 1988). Drivers pick her up on the side of the road and she ends up vanishing before they reach her requested destination where they often learn from her family that she is actually dead (Langlois, 1978). The ritual associated with the legend however is quite different. The Bloody Mary ritual, which is usually performed by a group of pre-pubescent girls, usually involves standing in front of a …show more content…
The Bloody Mary ritual is a fairly modern occurrence, becoming popular in the 1960s and 1970s (Langlois, 1978), when the sexual liberation movement was often detrimental to adolescent girls who were sought after by adult men, making the idea of puberty both exciting and frightening, just as the ritual itself is. Dundes (2002) points out another connection with virginity in the title character of the legend, Mary, stating that the ritual occurs frequently in Catholic elementary schools alluding to the name being a variation on the Virgin Mary. This connection to loss of virginity could explain why many of the rituals involve a group of girls gathering together, seemingly as a means of supporting one another, while each individual girl must enter the bathroom and experience the appearance of Bloody Mary on her