Is Bloody Mary Real

Is Bloody Mary real? Queen Mary Tudor, a famous Bloody Mary to be certain, is definitely based on a real person. So the question, then, is not is she real, but who is the real Bloody Mary of legend?

What makes a legend real? Fact or belief?

The legend of Bloody Mary is explored in many different stories and folk tales. Invoking Bloody Mary is a popular game for girls at sleepovers and horror movies. Bloody Mary’s impact on popular culture is unmistakable from the historical legends to the many folk stories, and even an alcoholic drink based on the legend.

But is Bloody Mary real?

The short answer is yes, Bloody Mary is real. The long answer is, bloody Mary existed at one point, but no one is certain whether or not the various Bloody Marys of history and the Bloody Mary of legend are one and the same. The answer to that question remains part of the alluring mystery.

Bloody Mary is the black nickname for Queen Mary I or Queen Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Like her Spanish-born mother, Mary Tudor was a devout Catholic. She loathed her father’s conversion to Protestantism as well as his very public and humiliating divorce of her mother. When Mary ascended the throne upon King Henry VIII’s death, she began a campaign to return England to the Catholic Church.

During her reign, hundreds of Protestants were tortured, turned out from their homes or burnt at the stake. Queen Mary preferred the methods of the Spanish Inquisition and the very public executions fed into her ‘Bloody Mary’ nickname. Historians cite Mary Tudor’s barren womb and her possible death by the bursting of an ovarian cyst as another source for her bloody moniker. Although Henry VIII executed many more people during his reign than his daughter did, the Protestant reign of Mary’s younger sister Queen Elizabeth I far outlasted her own, and history is typically written by the victors.

Not often associated with the ‘Bloody Mary’ legend, some tales maintain that ‘Bloody Mary’ referred to the Transylvanian noblewoman who lived during the same time period as Queen Mary Tudor. The Countess Bathory is also closely tied to legends of vampires, and is said to be among those that inspired Bram Stoker’s original Dracula. So why the "bloody" appellation?

It seems that among the Countess Bathory’s proclivities was the desire to maintain her youth and beauty. She did this by drinking and bathing in blood. Her exotic and often cruel tastes extended to other areas of her life as well, but it was her murders of many virgin girls that brought her notoriety throughout Europe.

The legend of Bloody Mary continues to exert influence on modern popular culture. In the show Supernatural, Bloody Mary is the ghost of a woman named Mary Worthington, who tried to scrawl the name of her murderer on a mirror before she died. When her murder went unprosecuted, she haunted the mirror and sought revenge on those that hid the truth of other murders. The Winchester brothers destroy her when they shatter her mirror with her inside. The show’s retooling of the Bloody Mary legend pays particular homage to the name, the mirror and the revenge theme, but it avoids mentioning the death of any children. Instead, it is just Mary that is the victim.

Could the legend be based on a real story? No one can prove it’s not, therefore, the chance remains that Bloody Mary is indeed real and her story is remembered every time a young child whispers her name into a mirror.

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