Popularized as an adolescent game played during slumber parties, the “Bloody Mary” legend seems to have first surfaced in the 1970s. The initial idea was to go to a mirror (usually the bathroom mirror) where the light would be switched off and the door closed to make the room very dark. Players as ask to take a candle, hold it up to their faces, and chant the phrase “bloody Mary” exactly thirteen times, no more and no less. In an instance the face of the alleged Bloody Mary is said to appear in the glass as is seen by the light of the candle.

            The participant should then drop the candle immediately and run from the room, for as legend has it Bloody Mary has been known to pull her victims into the mirror never to be heard from again. Even worse, she will slit their throats and they will die bleeding on the floor.

            No one claims to know who Bloody Mary really was or how the legend really started. Some say Bloody Mary is the ghost of a woman who was burned as a witch and other stories tell she is the spirit of a young woman killed in an automobile crash. She is sometimes also called Mary Worth. As most folklore believed in by adolescents and some adults, Bloody Mary holds most power over the human imagination, and no doubt will be part of sleepovers for a while.