Bloody Mary
Wikipedia
Everyone knows how to play this game: stand in a dark bathroom, look into the mirror, and chant her name three times. Then, the terrifying ghost of a woman holding a dead baby is said to appear: Bloody Mary.
The woman behind the infamous myth and childhood game is more sad than scary. The myth is loosely based on a nickname given to Queen Mary I, the first queen regent of England in the 16th century.
Mary was the only child of King Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. She had a hard life bookmarked with events like her parent’s divorce, her stepmother Anne Boleyn’s declaration that she was illegitimate, and chronic menstrual pains.
Despite all of the odds, Mary eventually became queen in 1553. A defining moment in her reign — and the story behind her nickname — happened in 1554.
At the time, England was divided between Protestants and Catholics. Mary was a devout Catholic and determined to unite her people under the “true religion.” She signed an act that allowed the Marian Persecutions which resulted in the deaths of 240 men and 60 women who were deemed Protestants and burned at the stake for it. Thus the nickname “Bloody Mary” was born.
Mary suffered bouts of depression and melancholia throughout her life. When she couldn’t have a child with her husband she believed it was a karmic punishment for the role she played in the deaths of some 300 people.
Mary died young at the age of 42, most likely due to uterine or ovarian cancer, but the legends say that you can catch a glimpse of the long-dead queen if you dare chant her name thrice.
While this is not a case of horror movies based on true stories per se, it is the stuff of nightmarish folklore that appears in pop culture today.
