Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - Episode Fifty-Five Pt.2： Bloody Mary [feat. Back Away Slowly] Spooktober Urban Legends

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00:00:41.200 Or am I doing you a favor of, like, providing more episodes

00:00:45.940 so you don't have to write more episodes?

00:00:48.860 Hello, guys.

00:00:50.080 I am back with Em.

00:00:52.560 Em from Back Away Slowly podcast,

00:00:54.440 who i have called in in case you missed part one of this episode as my urban legend what do we call

00:01:02.200 you am i calling you an expert my legend my urban legend legend because you're a legend my friend

00:01:07.680 has uh dubbed me rogue folklorist and i'm taking that title so yes i guess i'll just start going

00:01:14.200 with that rogue folklorist m from back away slowly podcast um she got a full introduction in part one

00:01:21.700 so if you're wondering who is this this is not the m that i know she's new and she's my m2

00:01:28.660 standing if you want to go back and catch up we started bloody mary last episode um and we're

00:01:35.040 going to continue now okay so where we left off we were getting into the international variants

00:01:40.980 of the bloody mary legend so there is there are phenomenons or phenomena in other cultures uh

00:01:50.480 which do tie in a lot of the bloody mary elements the bloody mary legend belongs to a broader global

00:01:56.820 phenomenon the quote toilet ghost whilst pop culture gave us fictional takes like harry potter's

00:02:03.020 moaning myrtle the real world folklore features countless spirits said to haunt bathrooms

00:02:08.240 loos and lavatories across the globe i just had a thought that i wonder because

00:02:13.820 i've kind of trained myself to think this way but as you're reading that about yeah there's

00:02:20.020 international folklore around bathrooms which that doesn't surprise me especially since this

00:02:24.420 is something that everyone experiences everyone goes to the bathroom everybody goes there alone

00:02:29.100 whatever it's very isolated you know and so when it comes to bloody mary connections i think it's

00:02:35.300 another another uh tick mark into evidence about its connection demonstration of these international

00:02:42.900 stories happen not just international bathroom international bathroom about women across

00:02:48.500 languages across cultures what's one of the things that women have as part of their lives

00:02:54.180 everywhere it's menstruation and i think that is further solidified by the age group of these

00:03:00.780 stories being told is still the same across all of that so it's just a passing thought yeah and

00:03:06.840 it's i think it's like there's something quite comforting in that like the shared like universal

00:03:11.220 experience like every girl goes through this no matter like how say how menstruation or puberty

00:03:19.160 was explained to you as a kid maybe your parents were very progressive about that maybe your

00:03:23.640 parents just weren't they didn't really have the language and tools to speak to you about it

00:03:27.840 um i got an american girl book that was not helpful so did everybody get a book i feel like

00:03:34.800 all millennials got the same book if if i if i showed that book if i found the cover of that

00:03:40.180 book i swear at least three-fourths of our listeners would be like oh my god i remember

00:03:45.080 this book it wasn't particularly helpful to me but i was on my own after that i remember just

00:03:50.240 telling my mom i already know it all anyway she was like hi and i was like i heard it at school

00:03:55.380 she's like cool where else she was trying to clarify was it from a teacher but like

00:04:00.040 unfortunately it was from the other kids oh yeah that's regular and stuff and then mostly out of

00:04:05.480 like teen magazines they were very helpful it's it's one thing that i think i feel sad for like

00:04:11.980 the current generation because they don't have like their magazine would that would teach them

00:04:15.740 about like this is normal and this is something that like you should tell your mom about if this

00:04:20.000 happens to you you know it's they're sort of trying to battle the tide of probably misinformation

00:04:25.720 out there oh yeah it's like they wouldn't have the discernment to know sources that well

00:04:30.740 where they should be getting their information we need a resurgence of like those kind of age

00:04:37.080 ages for magazines because i do also think that there's something that we've lost in terms of yes

00:04:42.640 you can share things immediately but there's something about having a physical thing to kind

00:04:47.520 of ground that information and share with a friend and have that physical thing instead of losing it

00:04:53.120 into the internet ether i do think that there's something helpful there for them to be able to

00:04:57.440 repeatedly referenced there's someone out there that has the ability to revive this thing and do

00:05:02.680 it you need an illustrator let me know but like someone out there i do think it would be valuable

00:05:07.880 yeah okay so we have ghost panic in bangladesh a government primary school in pabna was forced

00:05:16.260 to close following the sudden death of an 11 year old student who fell ill after using a particular

00:05:21.680 toilet when 10 more children fell sick after using the same stall local residents demanded

00:05:28.180 the school close until the entity was expelled a local official explained that an evil spirit

00:05:34.320 long rumored to live in a nearby palm tree had moved into the bathroom after locals performed

00:05:40.320 a ritual rooted in voodoo now this i don't know why it's voodoo from this source in bangladesh

00:05:47.020 but i don't know where they found this ritual illness has ceased and the spirit reportedly

00:05:53.140 returned to its tree i mean i do some places do unfortunately some reporters and things like that

00:05:59.760 do just kind of food especially what's the date on this article in particular voodoo kind of became

00:06:05.120 a catch-all term for a certain kind of almost ritual practice um they don't really a lot of

00:06:10.420 reporters don't really look into the difference between voodoo hoodoo and other things and it is

00:06:14.540 a problem i'd be interested in this one to see it says that 10 more students fell sick i'd be

00:06:20.280 interested how severe their cases were or if this is a common thing in urban legends and things like

00:06:26.400 these the satanic panic or the halloween sadist uh frequently um quite a few people had come

00:06:33.560 forward when brunvon was asking about the halloween sadist to say that um you know what

00:06:38.180 were your experiences and quite a few kids came forward that a lot of the times it was children

00:06:41.940 children would put something into their own candy and they were things that were easy to find it

00:06:46.640 was needles it was tax it was whatever and they would put it into their own candy because for a

00:06:50.560 brief amount of time mom and dad are paying attention to me and the police are here and oh

00:06:55.360 my god the news are here and so i am a little bit suspicious sometimes when it says that you know

00:07:00.540 10 more children fell ill i'm like to what degree did they fall ill and what are the sources for

00:07:05.220 that um because i'm not i'm not trying to cast negativity on children it's just children are

00:07:10.780 taught that attention is kind of their way to survive and social currency so i'd be curious

00:07:16.320 about this source kids are going to be kids you know yeah and it's it's adult attention is like

00:07:22.040 the ultimate like whatever by attention from your peers when you're a child for adult adults and

00:07:27.640 especially a group of adults and officials to paying that much attention to you it's just i

00:07:32.840 mean you couldn't replicate a high like that my god yeah oh and your yeah the peers one i think

00:07:39.760 was even more for me just that kind of general attention so i'd be a little suspicious of like

00:07:45.080 oh my god 10 children i'm like was one of them out with a fever you know what i mean like and

00:07:49.080 what's your evidence for that they all used the same stall because it would be very easy for them

00:07:54.660 to like for all we know one of them fake saying so that they could stay home because they were sick

00:07:59.740 and they're like oh it was this you know there's just yeah again kids kids do stuff to try to get

00:08:06.480 out of school or get attention so i'd be curious about that of course yeah and what everyone else

00:08:12.000 reported as well um we have chester's tom in england in the ancient city of chester near the

00:08:19.400 welsh border public toilets along fraudsham street are haunted by a ghost known as tom

00:08:25.100 dressed in 1950s to 1960s attire tom committed suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor

00:08:32.140 in one of the stalls eyewitnesses report seeing his body seen reenacted before their eyes even

00:08:39.140 after the city renovated the facilities over a decade ago sightings only grew more frequent

00:08:44.500 i mean like this is it's a tragic story that's obviously burned into the memory of this town

00:08:52.180 and when you have something that's so visceral of like somebody so young hurting themselves in such

00:09:01.540 away like if there are any stories or any urban legends that emerge within a place like this of

00:09:08.780 course they're going to link it back to probably the most controversial and memorable thing that

00:09:14.160 happened in their town you know yeah i've i'm kind of facing that struggle up it's where i'm

00:09:20.480 going to be going on that research trip because unfortunately in one of the buildings there was

00:09:24.400 a student that committed suicide and the family it's it's it's an island so like the family still

00:09:31.780 lives there even you know i don't know if it's a generation on but like people who knew this person

00:09:37.980 are still there that kind of a thing and so when people are claiming that they're seeing them i

00:09:43.440 think sometimes it's difficult to know morally if it's responsible to be you know because this was

00:09:48.760 a real person with real family members and that kind of a thing but i think we shouldn't underestimate

00:09:54.100 how much people also want to see evidence of this person still existing and want to see evidence

00:10:01.120 that they that there is an afterlife or they still want to even however horrible see an echo

00:10:07.820 of this person and if that's happening that's very intriguing how do you kind of investigate that

00:10:15.060 without upsetting the family or things like that because that's pretty that's not as old as it

00:10:21.240 could be you know like and especially like 1950s and 60s that's a like living memory for a start

00:10:28.340 um it's also like sorry i just realized when we were i was reading it earlier i

00:10:34.120 was using the term committed suicide that's not really the accepted term anymore it's completed

00:10:38.940 suicide um because suicide is maybe it might be a this side of the pond thing but um it's because

00:10:47.280 suicide is no longer a criminal offense um so when you commit it you didn't commit a crime yes

00:10:54.240 yes absolutely i do think that is extremely significant i will make a note of that because

00:10:59.220 i do think that's especially with how long religion has separated suicides and like graveyards and

00:11:04.920 things like that i think that's very significant yeah but completely to that point i think this was

00:11:08.920 prime time when people who died by suicide were being treated as you know this horrifically

00:11:17.500 scandalous thing and it's you know the understanding wasn't there the mental health

00:11:22.680 understanding wasn't there the understanding of depression wasn't there so I do think that this

00:11:28.280 sort of car crash tv sort of dark tourism fascination thing is definitely a huge element

00:11:34.800 to this and it's you know the whole like saying that they're walking in and they're seeing the

00:11:39.900 scene of his death being reenacted I can't personally think or it doesn't it would not

00:11:45.840 make sense to me for anybody to be describing for example a murder victim like that I don't

00:11:51.800 think anybody would say that you like if there was a scene of a horrific murder in their town

00:11:58.160 I can't imagine stories going around of well I walked in there and I saw all the murder victims

00:12:03.600 you know it's it's this very specific thing with suicide and it's almost like a victim blaming

00:12:09.700 thing of like well you know because i have people who oh have you i have heard it's rare but i have

00:12:18.360 heard of walking in and like it is it is rare um potentially not if i do more research but i

00:12:26.060 that's a fascinating concept that there are more reports of seeing a suicide in a sense of

00:12:33.500 almost an eternal shame that your most quote-unquote shameful moment is now woven into the

00:12:41.940 fabric of time and space eternally the crybaby lanes thing i was talking about frequently um

00:12:47.640 within those stories you you will hear that is the number one thing that determines if it's a

00:12:52.460 crybaby lane that you hear something but frequently there are that you will see the woman hanging she

00:12:59.120 hung herself because her partner was not going to accept this pregnancy or what have you some of

00:13:03.800 them get more gruesome but you're right there are a lot more recounts of a suicide and almost this

00:13:10.940 everyone is aware that you did this and then even if you think you get away with it eternally people

00:13:17.040 will be witnessing your shame that is something that i think is worth looking into that's yeah

00:13:22.820 horribly tragic and sad again links into what we were saying earlier about the cautionary tale

00:13:28.340 aspect of if you do this then your soul will never be at rest and it will be something that

00:13:34.460 you'll end up haunting the place that you you know you'll be trapped doing it over yes over again

00:13:41.040 like that is such a i know that a lot of people that oh my god now that i think about it of just

00:13:48.680 how many ghosts are yes the victim of some kind of violent crime but we see them sometimes as

00:13:57.780 they looked after the crimes and you see the grisly details but they are just in existence

00:14:01.460 of the space because they can't let go of the space but the actual violence being committed

00:14:06.540 is that is such an odd gap and i would be curious to see that again if there is a difference between

00:14:15.680 stories and areas of a religious component is this story in this area more of a christian

00:14:22.360 catholic like protestant area where it is a crime to have committed suicide at least for a time i'm

00:14:28.860 not sure about protestants don't quote me on that one but like in general christianity that

00:14:32.580 committing suicide is a crime so i wonder if in those stories where you're witnessing a suicide

00:14:38.680 i wonder how many of them would be connected to religion it would track for the crybaby lanes

00:14:43.960 because those areas are often overwhelmingly christian and yeah it really lacks a kind of

00:14:49.980 empathy it turns them more into a source of shock and of in-your-face warning don't do this instead

00:14:56.460 of you know the tragedy of it unfortunately yeah um next we have the five fishermen restaurant in

00:15:05.100 halifax canada and i just want to before i forget point out that uh two of the podcasts on our

00:15:12.060 podcast network have done episodes on this um i know for sure canadian creepies and down the

00:15:18.980 cricket path have and i believe it came from the maritimes have also done that so if you would like

00:15:23.180 a full deep dive into the five fishermen restaurant um and the halifax explosion um you can dive into

00:15:31.520 that um i will link them in the show notes as well i just wanted to say that before i forget

00:15:36.640 before turning into a restaurant in the 1970s the this building served as a morgue that processed

00:15:43.420 over 2 000 corpses including the victims of the 1912 titanic disaster and a massive cargo ship

00:15:50.120 explosion a few years later that was the halifax explosion patrons in the ladies room frequently

00:15:56.460 report loud noises and sightings of two distinct entities an angry male spirit and a young girl

00:16:03.060 who's who seems terrified and unaware that she has died it's very sad yeah it fits with that

00:16:10.680 cause of death though if you want to go with the you don't know your dead theory like it does kind

00:16:15.640 of unfortunately fit there yeah oregon's abandoned restroom known locally as the stone house trail

00:16:24.120 house or witch's house this portland structure is actually the ruins of a public restroom built

00:16:29.580 along a forest trail nearly a century ago it was abandoned after a severe storm destroyed its water

00:16:35.380 lines in the 1960s today ghost hunters flock to the surrounding woods reporting disembodied voices

00:16:42.100 and ethereal figures moving through the trees carrying blinking lights no thank you but it's

00:16:50.380 interesting that like even the ruins of a restroom don't escape the whole toilet ghost

00:16:54.560 like that's i don't know what the implication is there but like that is also fascinating though

00:17:00.660 i was also kind of laughing because no i won't summon bloody mary in a mirror but if i see

00:17:06.140 lights off i will very carefully be investigating i will not be falling into a bog but like it's

00:17:12.420 like oh these serial figures and i'm like i'll go look into it i'm not gonna go into an abandoned

00:17:18.640 check it out i will i i don't ghost hunt into like abandoned places because i don't have a

00:17:25.320 death wish but like if i see that in the woods i'm at least gonna see what's up absolutely um

00:17:32.460 especially around this time of the year because that's exactly when you want to be doing stuff

00:17:35.820 like this uh and then like i decided to try and look a little bit more globally because i know

00:17:42.920 bloody mary is definitely mainly north america if not completely north america my only interaction

00:17:51.060 with the bloody mary legend as opposed to like the hitchhiker woman in white is i'd only seen

00:17:56.880 it in american media which is interesting i haven't seen it make if it was something that

00:18:03.520 was here if kids were telling the bloody mary story here i feel like they got it from american

00:18:09.640 tv um it wasn't something that was like a folklore for want of a better word indigenous to this

00:18:17.340 place i'm thinking that it potentially it was just known by a different name and then potentially

00:18:24.180 possibly this whole vanishing hitchhiker thing where it kind of meshed into something else or

00:18:28.320 it meshed into other things because it didn't have such a strong title that was known by such

00:18:33.580 a larger group of people it didn't have that everybody knows this quality to it so it would

00:18:39.400 kind of track that maybe it kind of just melded into something else or somewhere else under a

00:18:45.440 different name um i i don't know where this tracks back exactly you know the source um well there's

00:18:52.540 also uh we'll get into like media portrayals i do think there's also the whole aspect that

00:18:57.880 um because american media is such a huge global phenomenon when something gets immortalized within

00:19:04.720 american media it almost becomes canon even even when it was a story that was across cultures

00:19:10.340 because if you get something that's popular enough or that's seems to speak with enough

00:19:15.340 authority then that becomes the story and that's the the way that people understand the story

00:19:21.760 because that was that's how they remember it you know yeah i i will say that u.s uh media is such

00:19:30.140 a juggernaut that of course that is the thing that kind of gets spread around and again i think we

00:19:35.780 kind of the names of these kind of get almost break it up to the point that we don't realize

00:19:42.520 that there's a common source especially if you don't look past the name itself especially when

00:19:46.880 it comes to the toilet ghosts and asia and that kind of thing there's a lot of very common

00:19:51.360 elements to it but because the name like hanako-san or like the separation of it is enough

00:19:57.700 to totally break it apart so yeah and it might not always get captured unless you're looking

00:20:04.780 at specific aspects of the folklore

00:20:06.860 it might not always get grouped together

00:20:08.840 you know

00:20:09.340 so in Sweden we have

00:20:12.580 Svarta Madam

00:20:13.380 Swedish school age boys and girls chant

00:20:16.520 a specific formula to draw Svarta Madam

00:20:19.040 which means black madam

00:20:20.620 also called Svarta blodiga madam

00:20:23.240 which is bloody black madam

00:20:24.940 or Snuskiga madam

00:20:27.420 which is dirty madam

00:20:28.700 out of the mirror

00:20:29.700 regional variations dictate the exact time

00:20:32.660 location number of chance and her physical appearance please anybody scandinavian swedish

00:20:39.400 if you have a story about sparta madam or whatever she's called in your region i want to hear about

00:20:45.920 it because this is too close to bloody mary to be anything else for me you know i want to hear

00:20:52.060 from everywhere but the u.s almost of just true yeah because i think if people look at the details

00:20:58.220 instead of just the names i think that it's an even bigger net than most of us understand just

00:21:02.900 because we unfortunately don't speak multiple languages we can't like i i found a few academic

00:21:07.780 papers that were in different languages and i can't read it but i'm sure that there's more

00:21:12.340 compelling stories that's fascinating yeah yeah in the uk we have school toilet ladies

00:21:18.480 researcher mark armitage documented widespread traditions of quote toilet ghosts hunting school

00:21:25.480 bathroom blocks across britain most commonly referred to as the white lady the green lady

00:21:30.920 or the gray lady and this is definitely where moaning myrtle in harry potter came from oh yeah

00:21:36.060 you guys are so polite you guys are so polite to your ghosts it's lady it's school toilet ladies

00:21:42.000 we're like bloody mary like it is the most aggressive you know she's titled she has an

00:21:49.260 estate probably i know like just oh the lady and we're just like aggressive and you guys are just

00:21:56.560 so nice this this was one that it was sort of on the back of my mind that i knew was there so i had

00:22:02.560 to actually go looking for it was hanako san japan's most famous bathroom ghost haunts the

00:22:08.100 third stall of the third floor girls washroom origin theories vary some say she was killed by

00:22:14.780 an intruder others claim she died in a wartime bombing raid she was murdered by an abusive

00:22:20.560 parent or she took her own life we have the suicide aspect once again unlike bloody mary

00:22:27.420 she does not require a mirror summoners knock three times on the stall door asking hanako san

00:22:34.460 are you there upon hearing her childlike confirmation the door opens to reveal a girl

00:22:39.920 in a red skirt with her hair in a classic bun who pulls the victim into the toilet and down to hell

00:22:46.200 this this one was always very odd to me because sometimes there is talk of different colored

00:22:54.860 i i could swear there's a version where um you can be given like the different colored toilet

00:23:01.660 paper kind of a thing and like there are sometimes i know there's like a slit-mouthed woman there's

00:23:07.500 like a few other where there is a you are given a choice and how you choose depends on whether or

00:23:13.620 not you survive of you know do i look pretty and if yes or no is not a good option i think there's

00:23:20.940 one version of it where you say i don't know or you give a third option that will confuse her for

00:23:26.460 a second and allow you to escape and okay this hanako-san has always been a little bit odd to me

00:23:34.280 because i was thinking as you were talking that i wonder if the suicide aspect is almost

00:23:39.380 unfortunately it is a common thing in stories of like you deserve this fate you deserve this

00:23:44.200 eternal fate this is your punishment for committing it the other sources of this woman's

00:23:48.960 of this young girl's demise is like the bombing is murder is things like that things that happened

00:23:54.480 to her and her action of pulling a victim into toilet and into hell is so hokey as to border

00:24:04.200 on comedic that i find it very odd i never know what to make of it it feels almost

00:24:09.980 disrespectful which is odd to say for a story like this it's it's bizarre but i wonder again

00:24:18.740 is this the child aspect of it that is children telling this like you might really be on the

00:24:25.480 money for that maybe it started a lot more like visceral or scarier but then it's like what's

00:24:31.200 funnier to kids toilets and farts and yeah yeah that's that's kind of insane that that is the

00:24:38.320 irreverence of a child there's a whole genre of like japanese ghosts and all of that that is just

00:24:44.440 i would love to do like a series on them because it's yeah like that it can be again there's a

00:24:50.720 fascination to me that there there are other ghosts like the vanishing hitchhiker you choose

00:24:56.220 whether or not you pick her up or not but like he's there's a certain subset in asia of like

00:25:02.860 you are given a direct choice by this supernatural entity and how you choose whether or not you have

00:25:08.200 the foreknowledge of it depends on whether you live or die is a fascinating component that i

00:25:12.760 don't tend to find elsewhere yeah a test that you must pass and like if you don't pass it will be

00:25:18.900 fatal for you so yeah yeah those elevator ritual games i will be looking into those those are so

00:25:25.060 all of those ritual games about there was one for a time of um you kind of hiding a doll in your

00:25:30.920 house and you invite an entity in and you have to survive hidden until dawn like something like

00:25:35.980 that when you get a wish like things like that that are very is risk versus reward you know again

00:25:42.600 well if you get a wish or whatever you but yeah it's fascinating god and then as we alluded to

00:25:49.240 earlier that bloody mary is pretty prominent i would say for the last like 20 to 30 years

00:25:57.140 in pop culture she's been pretty prominent but i know you have some older portrayals

00:26:01.380 yeah that you mentioned it's from the book retells and remakes from 2021 by lincoln costello

00:26:08.540 uh collected a few of these and so one of the earliest iterations and i'll go up through time

00:26:14.460 until we hit those is halloween happenings was by leti c venderveer in 1921 and as the u.s was

00:26:24.880 recovering from the first world war um people would have parties often because they were trying

00:26:30.100 to kind of boost morale back after the party and so this was kind of the first artifact of party

00:26:36.680 planning and it's talking about those beginning divination rituals um like one where a woman

00:26:42.440 walks backwards down a flight of stairs while gazing at her own reflection in a handheld mirror

00:26:49.020 and the the man that manifests in that it's often a like marriage ritual so that is kind of

00:26:56.460 the one of the earliest that i could find of this kind of mirror ritual trying to summon someone

00:27:02.640 in a mirror yeah the next one is it's referenced as like snow white in the seven dwarves the mirror

00:27:09.420 the mirror being entity and summoning it to have this kind of supernatural power

00:27:15.300 to yeah act what you wish um dead of night 1945 world war ii era british horror okay so a fiance

00:27:24.940 buys her husband an antique mirror and from an antique salesman and unbeknownst to her the mirror

00:27:32.140 belonged to a man who strangled his wife before killing himself all in front of this mirror and

00:27:37.320 therefore it connects this evil to this mirror um so it's it's implying that the soul of these

00:27:46.020 people is now connected to the mirror and it's the real world um orphe is a orphe orphe is a 1950

00:27:53.820 french film um and the protagonist orpheus which anyone knowing of greek myth orpheus goes to the

00:28:02.540 underworld to retrieve his his bride and uh unfortunately he's told do not look back just

00:28:08.640 get to the end and do not look back he reaches the edge of the underworld and looks back and

00:28:12.340 she disappears to him forever um that is another one that will that is uh referenced in which

00:28:18.120 episode i did i did reference it just because it's this disappear like this kind of summoning

00:28:23.420 and disappearance of what you could obtain with it so the main protagonist orpheus um is looking

00:28:29.120 for his deceased wife by passing through a mirror into the world of the dead and so that connection

00:28:35.260 to this person who has died and that kind of a thing it's not the same aggression of this summoned

00:28:41.140 person but you are using it to access this woman who has died the witch's mirror 1962 is mexican

00:28:47.040 and there was a mexican radiation accident of 1962 and there's possible imagery connecting it to that

00:28:54.740 And so we have a housekeeper that practices black magic, and she performs a mirror divination ritual. And she through that ritual finds out that her goddaughter, Elena is going to be murdered by her husband. And so she's attempting to do a deal with a demon in order to save her life.

00:29:12.920 So again, this access to the paranormal and dealing with murder and death through it.

00:29:19.720 Got Ghost of the Mirror in 1974, Chinese.

00:29:23.680 Like, notice that we are really kind of starting to get around the world, even though America kind of trumps that in general.

00:29:30.600 And so a young man goes to an abandoned estate to record Buddhist scriptures.

00:29:35.300 And while he's there, he sees what looks to be a woman in a well, but he realizes it's a mirror.

00:29:38.900 and he pulls the mirror out of the well and realizes that the woman in it is a reflection

00:29:43.060 of a woman who has been drowned therefore her soul bound to that mirror so again like these are

00:29:47.120 there's these are distinct differences between cultures from dark arts bargaining with demons

00:29:53.500 to being drowned instead of murdered and murder be a drowning but it is like different in terms

00:29:59.820 of usually how a person is killed in that way it was released after the zhaotong earthquake of 1974

00:30:07.180 for and so the themes of grief and mourning kind of cross pollinate with orphe uh the boogeyman

00:30:13.660 1980 pair of siblings after one of those siblings kills their childhood abuser at a young age

00:30:19.620 and 20 years later he's entirely non-verbal lacy's married and they go to a psychiatrist and they are

00:30:27.600 now back in the home where the murder took place and so it just again kind of doing these things

00:30:34.260 involving a mirror and that whole thing and then we hit yours so the ultimate one if we're talking

00:30:42.240 about urban legends and movies and i know you spoke about it as well is candy man the original

00:30:47.360 from 1992 the superior i'm sorry not sorry um i do prefer it i mean if anybody who hasn't seen

00:30:55.040 candy man there is this whole aspect of a mirror in an apartment building and there it's sort of

00:31:00.860 like a hiding further uh passages within the building the film's protagonist helen there's

00:31:08.880 this whole sequence where she sort of morphs into this bloody mary figure where she is literally

00:31:13.700 just looks completely ravaged by everything that has happened to her in the plot so it is very much

00:31:21.060 like what would put you in mind it's drawing on all of that bloody mary imagery that we have been

00:31:26.860 discussing throughout this episode

00:31:28.740 and it was drawing

00:31:30.860 on 1970s urban legends

00:31:32.860 to use horror tropes as a lens

00:31:35.080 for examining Bloody Mary

00:31:36.720 is very much a commentary on

00:31:38.920 racial and sexual violence

00:31:40.440 it's just an incredible film

00:31:42.880 and one of those films I was not allowed to watch

00:31:45.160 until, there wasn't a lot of films

00:31:47.240 I wasn't really allowed to watch

00:31:48.760 but I remember my brother had it on like a VHS

00:31:51.300 videotape and

00:31:52.220 really wanting to watch it and just

00:31:55.060 not being allowed for ages and then I think I only watched it in like my late 20s because I

00:32:00.220 thought I was like I wasn't allowed to watch that I want to see it now yeah same I find it I find it

00:32:06.120 very compelling that instead of it's almost kind of admitting that this being that you can summon

00:32:11.760 is there as an act of vengeance or that kind of you did not have this power in life but you have

00:32:19.160 it in death and now it is just transferred from women into an african-american slave this african

00:32:25.500 american man and that power that he was robbed of like it is still the same concept but now

00:32:32.200 spreading it further outside of women which i i think is absolutely valid i think it was a very

00:32:37.920 genius way of using like a storytelling device that obviously people were very familiar with

00:32:45.300 but like putting this brand new lens on it um and the racial lens um even if you are changing

00:32:50.960 the gender because yeah like the themes of oppression still apply yeah yeah this pain's

00:32:56.800 still valid and like to my knowledge i believe caprini green is a real place you know it brought

00:33:02.080 real attention to a very destitute area i know that the crews when they were filming there were

00:33:08.520 actually in quite a bit of danger while they were there but the payoff for that is bringing attention

00:33:14.460 to uh for instance there are children within the film that live in this kind of dangerous

00:33:19.140 area and it's bringing attention to what's going on when uh gentrification happens and

00:33:24.400 when you lack resources required like children will suffer innocent people suffer and even

00:33:30.140 across time even though it's not slavery anymore it is still hurting people is just it is it is

00:33:37.280 such a significant film for so many reasons but it's still i find still relevant today

00:33:43.300 they did a great job and the fact that it just occurred to me as i'm thinking of these things

00:33:48.180 helen is attacked not by the candy man she is attacked by human boys and men in a bathroom

00:33:58.040 she is taken to the cops beaten and bloody after violence in a bathroom which i don't know if they

00:34:05.800 intended for that to be a connecting thing but i it's hard to ignore when you see that and it is

00:34:12.740 it's the vulnerability aspect of bathrooms as well um you are like yeah um yeah uh then we have

00:34:22.800 x-files syzygy i think i'm saying that right um an episode from 1996 uses the specter of bloody

00:34:29.900 mary within within an apolitical framework showing how young female troublemakers disrupt the quiet

00:34:34.840 balance of their suburban town both candyman and the x-files reflected in 1990s anxieties

00:34:41.560 regarding state violence policing and vengeance and that's why horror is such a great genre because

00:34:47.160 it is not to be hammy about this but it is a complete mirror to society and the society that

00:34:53.840 it is being made in um i think if you want to know what people are scared of what people

00:34:58.660 want to draw attention to just look at what horror is is trending um and you will have your answer

00:35:05.880 more so i think than any other genre in my opinion because they can do what other genres

00:35:11.140 can't they can do the horrifying thing and it's not it can take the kid gloves off a lot of the

00:35:17.300 time in order to be direct about what it's trying to reference and i think that while that makes

00:35:23.880 some people uncomfortable i do think it's invaluable yeah if filmed right if approached

00:35:29.880 correctly yes very clear with that yeah because obviously there are there is horror that can be

00:35:36.420 very much exploitative um very much so like in a very very dark and very unfortunate way

00:35:45.660 um so yeah i think people who are true like masters of horror whether it's writing or

00:35:51.520 directing or even the cinematography of horror that's why when horror is good it is so damn good

00:35:57.980 it is just like you you just can't beat it um in charmed chick flick a demon brings classic

00:36:05.700 horror movie killers into the real world including bloody mary i always loved when there was like a

00:36:10.880 monster of the week that it featured like bloody mary or like somebody that like i was able to

00:36:14.940 recognize oh yeah i miss the kind of almost contained anthology that kind of thing ghost

00:36:21.160 whisper which i actually re-watched last year you know what the the special effects hold up on ghost

00:36:26.980 whisper for like a early 2000s show i didn't think it would but there are some genuinely unsettling

00:36:32.780 they had a bloody mary episode in the third season where um they have to investigate the

00:36:38.640 bloody mary mirror legend um because it seems to be terror terrorizing a group of college girls and

00:36:45.120 the mary character ghost is played by the wonderful may whitman who i have a soft spot for her i just

00:36:51.660 love her and everything are there so many shows including ones that we'll talk about and this of

00:36:58.080 just the early 2000s of they were working with the budget that they had but i want i want them

00:37:02.560 to be animated because you can do so much more and i know that supernatural did an animated first

00:37:09.160 season along with it and i want to revisit it because i think it is just so much the better

00:37:14.260 medium to kind of capture this kind of genre i'm still i still beloved of the hokiness of going

00:37:21.340 back i don't say that the effects all hold up but i i kind of want to see some of these as almost an

00:37:27.940 even just clips of a kind of animation um not not redone not really cg i i because i just don't

00:37:35.580 think it kind of captures it in a timeless way that i think animation can but anyway yeah i've

00:37:41.660 seen a lot of appetite as well for um people who like say a lot of the big like the book talk or

00:37:48.700 bookstagram books right now that are being made into tv shows or movies and there's a huge appetite

00:37:55.020 people saying like you're never going to do the characters justice with casting please just

00:37:59.340 animate it which i do see i do see warrant to that um because yeah you can create a character

00:38:07.540 out of your imagination it's going to be very hard to match a person like a physical person to that

00:38:14.040 and it'll be a lot of pressure for an actor yes and i do think it's the frankly to me i i think

00:38:20.200 you can nail casting it's the abilities and some of the visual descriptions that i think just

00:38:25.780 elude that kind of thing and so i am very i want good fantasy but man i don't trust it what with

00:38:33.700 how many companies are using ai now and things like that so i'm a little nervous about that but

00:38:38.420 i hope we get another good fantasy house of the dragon season three just wrapped up and i'm upset

00:38:44.540 i'm just gonna listen to the podcast companion over and over again it was such a good season oh

00:38:50.160 my god we'll talk about it i also like yeah i spent half my time crying over the dragons going

00:38:55.740 like i know this isn't gonna end well for the dragons but i don't want to see it i can't watch

00:39:00.400 there's one that i won't say just to spoil the character's death there's one that i can't watch

00:39:05.240 anymore and i know that the dragons fake but man they did such a good job so i'm like i can't watch

00:39:09.800 this again it's too sad just us bleeding hearts you know yeah and then supernatural as mentioned

00:39:18.880 uh they had a bloody mary episode it centers on the ghost of mary worthington an aspiring actress

00:39:25.700 who died of an apparent suicide in front of her mirror her spirit moves between mirrors within a

00:39:31.420 fixed radius of her death site targeting individuals who harbor secret guilts over another person's

00:39:36.920 death this is what i always loved about supernatural is like they there would be

00:39:42.080 because i was die hard supernatural like when it was airing like oh my god i was obsessed with it

00:39:48.120 when they would they would bring like an urban legend in and whatever way they would twist it or

00:39:53.240 add a logic into it that was often missing from the story itself that i really appreciated it

00:40:01.180 it did humanize a lot of the characters like mary is very much humanized within this episode

00:40:05.900 you know when she's given a name and she's given an occupation and her motive like why she is

00:40:12.940 targeting these specific people sam and dean defeat her by luring her out of a mirror and

00:40:17.920 forcing her to face her own reflection causing the phantom to judge and destroy herself which i find

00:40:24.000 so so tragically sad in the sense of this was a suicide and i and things like i'm just you casting

00:40:31.040 that judgment on yourself is what destroys you it feels i get that they are kind of challenged by

00:40:36.600 each of these kind of monsters of the week thing to have a circular plot that is contained within

00:40:41.460 an episode but to circle that violence back towards herself instead of elsewhere or the

00:40:48.540 person that killed you know like essentially was responsible for her ire or like even someone

00:40:54.240 within the police that hid things like to have that violence circle back to herself kind of

00:41:00.000 unfortunately re-supports the you deserve this from suicide i don't know you know what i'll take

00:41:04.780 it back i don't think she deserves it from suicide it's she's kind of on the loose and there is

00:41:10.000 nothing else we can do to save other people other than to take her out so it is tragic i don't think

00:41:14.900 it's i don't think it's you deserve this from the suicide we're in a shit situation we got to save

00:41:20.760 people yeah and like to be fair to the people involved with the show i very much always said

00:41:28.160 with these like tragic like figures where that was like a haunting or something it very much did

00:41:33.180 treat it like like there was a human at the at the root of this and we're very sad that this is

00:41:38.440 a hurting person but like like you said it's i guess it's it sort of ties into the whole suicide

00:41:45.560 is the ultimate final decision aspect of it and like there's nothing else that we can do

00:41:50.820 yeah because of this is the state that this person is in um i do have one more is the movie

00:41:58.620 oculus from 2013 and that uh-huh that has siblings who their there was the death of their parents

00:42:08.020 i'm gonna try to avoid spoilers here there was the death of their parents but the one of the

00:42:13.560 siblings is convinced that the mirror had something to do with it the mirror has something to do with

00:42:19.160 these deaths and everything that happens the other one just kind of doesn't even want to

00:42:24.220 deal with this anymore would rather back away but they're put into a situation where they are now

00:42:29.000 facing this mirror and the things that occur around it and is it real is it not is it themselves is it

00:42:35.680 it is a i don't want to say too much more for spoilers for people who want to watch but it

00:42:41.420 it is there's a reason it's here for bloody mary i'll say that it's a good one and i also want to

00:42:46.540 say because i i'm just like conscious of like the continuity between our episodes i think last

00:42:51.420 episode i uh ranted for about 10 minutes about how much i love mike flanagan that is also a mike

00:42:57.420 flanagan production oculus oh okay all right he's responsible for uh a haunting of hill house and

00:43:04.960 bly manor bunch of shows that are great and perfect for watching right now if you guys are

00:43:10.820 listening to this in the midst of spooky season but yes i completely forgotten about oculus and

00:43:16.360 the whole yeah it's a good one aspect yeah do you have a standout portrayal of mary

00:43:23.320 my own fans are gonna be so tired of hearing it but it's supernatural hands down it's the

00:43:29.680 supernatural episode because look i'm i mentioned them so much just because so many of these urban

00:43:37.680 legends were literally the backbone of the first couple seasons which tend to be people's favorite

00:43:42.140 seasons um so mirrors are often viewed as a window to the soul and a way for you to view yourself

00:43:49.720 your own internal soul yourself and in that episode bloody mary the spirit of this woman

00:43:55.660 is bringing the worst things you've done to light which she's getting access through through that

00:44:00.040 connection to your soul and the power to enact revenge that she was never given for her own life

00:44:06.360 she transfers that anger into kind of enacting judgment and that whole thing and the most

00:44:12.640 memorable part to me that i frankly i think about more than almost any other episode

00:44:16.600 is that she gains access to you through mirrors well even when people escape the mirror that her

00:44:22.500 name is set in front of she follows them through anything that is reflective so mirrors window

00:44:28.360 panes glasses i think there's even a shot where the character can see bloody mary in the liquid

00:44:33.620 on the surface of the person the other person's eyeballs so like you literally cannot escape this

00:44:40.520 judgment that you that has been summoned and will enact to you and i find it to be such a compelling

00:44:45.240 version because although this bloody mary starts as a child's test of courage ritual the potential

00:44:51.580 consequence for summoning bloody mary in this one is incredibly severe it's rare we see bloody mary

00:44:57.980 so determined to enact vengeance that she follows you away from the original mirror and it turns

00:45:03.860 the mundane into the absolutely terrifying watching that episode i think uh the character

00:45:08.680 goes into a science lab and i'm like oh my god how many other things the metal off of the uh

00:45:15.180 chair that she's sitting in you know how quickly does the mundane become terrifying if you take

00:45:21.180 such a simple concept so it has to be supernatural yeah it really breaks the rules of horror in that

00:45:29.120 like it's especially even with within other episodes of supernatural there's a rule that's

00:45:34.680 established and this is how you get relief or how you escape from this entity or whatever it is and

00:45:40.560 as long as you do this then you're safe but with bloody mary it is just not like it's yeah like

00:45:46.420 you said completely inescapable um i've heard iterations though of bloody mary where when when

00:45:52.500 she enacts with you um you have isolated yourself and in some of them you cannot open the door

00:45:57.420 and sometimes your friends hold the door closed to freak you out but like off like there are quite

00:46:02.320 a few where the door she will not let you open the door so you have kind of walked into your own

00:46:07.260 trap which is another thing to look into really

00:46:10.600 hi everyone emily here and neve over here we're just popping in right before the ads

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00:46:59.060 folklore some people start their week with coffee alay starts hers with ghosts mysteries and things

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00:48:41.980 So we've talked about mirrors quite a lot and as I mentioned I will have a short episode on the

00:48:49.240 folklore of mirrors coming out this month as well but just to sprinkle a little bit in here because

00:48:57.220 it would be kind of crazy to not mention them anymore the folklore of them. Mirrors have

00:49:02.280 captivated human imagination since their earliest manifestations. The Latin root mirare appropriately

00:49:08.140 means to wonder at. Deeply tied to soul belief and catoptromancy which is divination through

00:49:14.560 reflection folklore traditionally teaches that mirrors reflect a person's spirit rather than

00:49:20.040 just their image. A distorted reflection signaled corruption, vampires cast no reflection and the

00:49:26.800 romans belief breaking one trapped part of your soul giving rise to seven years of bad luck so

00:49:33.060 that is where the seven years are it's not just bad luck it's it trapped part of your soul whoa

00:49:37.960 that is way bigger stakes than just the nebulous oh you have bad luck i heard and i doubled i'll

00:49:44.720 have to double check but i heard that vampires don't have reflection in mirrors because they

00:49:48.200 used silver at a certain point in time to like back i heard that theory i really like that

00:49:54.120 that could be made up like that could be but i i don't know that's pretty cow to me yeah this

00:50:01.000 whole silver i want to know the source of the whole silver magical power thing that seems

00:50:05.980 incredibly iron silver yeah you know it's incredibly uh expensive to have like silver

00:50:13.120 mirrors are that much silver around you so is this like a class issue is it like

00:50:17.780 maybe upper classes were able to protect themselves better than anyone else

00:50:22.720 mirrors function as liminal objects because they act as thresholds between physical reality and

00:50:28.980 virtual representation philosopher michelle foucault described the mirror as a unique

00:50:34.940 quote mixed experience it is a utopia because the reflection creates an unreal placeless space

00:50:41.700 where you're not physically located

00:50:43.640 yet it is simultaneously

00:50:45.700 a heterotropia

00:50:47.180 because it exists in the

00:50:49.620 real world and it anchors your presence

00:50:51.600 through your gaze

00:50:52.500 this dual nature places the mirror on the

00:50:55.580 boundary between what is real and what is

00:50:57.500 virtual it might feel safer

00:50:59.580 than using a spirit board because there

00:51:01.560 is this barrier between you and the

00:51:03.560 space Mary occupies

00:51:05.220 that's a big one

00:51:06.720 that is fascinating

00:51:09.620 yeah

00:51:10.000 that prince that that you feel like there's a barrier that there's something that will kind

00:51:15.280 of almost keep her out it's almost that controlled uh controlled fear similar to what we were talking

00:51:21.400 about with horror movies of there's this almost like glass cage that you can observe this spirit

00:51:26.840 you can observe proof of the afterlife she's the lion behind if you do it right yes uh-huh she

00:51:31.780 can't touch you that is if you do it right if you believe in her and you do it right it's a controlled

00:51:36.460 witnessing of the supernatural yeah different to like sticking your hand on something and feeling

00:51:42.560 it and touching it like you would with ouija board or spirit board i do think that like this this is

00:51:48.480 why i did want to do a separate thing about mirrors and especially the liminality of mirrors

00:51:52.900 and using them as portals and how much um mirrors are used within magic and people use reflections

00:52:00.420 and the light of mirrors and all of these different like aspects that i think it's

00:52:05.020 in you could not talk about mary without diving into this across cultures reflections remain tied

00:52:12.020 to mortality and protection from the chinese custom where mirrors are sometimes covered to

00:52:17.160 prevent the reflection of a coffin or funeral proceedings which was believed to invite further

00:52:22.200 misfortune to the modern practice of hanging hanging mirrors across front doors to ward off

00:52:27.940 negative energy. Okay so the ritual aspect. Folklorists often categorize the Bloody Mary

00:52:34.760 ritual as a form of legend tripping wherein young people actively perform and place themselves

00:52:40.500 directly inside the narrative. This participation typically occurs during key transitional life

00:52:46.680 stages serving as a catalyst for personal transformation. In their research on adolescent

00:52:53.120 occult interests sociologists gary allen fine and jeffrey victor emphasized that these practices

00:52:59.520 should not be misconstrued as genuine occultism or satanism instead teenagers use these rituals

00:53:06.260 as a controlled space to test new identities and to explore their changing relationships with peers

00:53:11.560 fine and victor note that young people push against the boundaries of social acceptability

00:53:16.780 largely to shock adult sensibilities and process anxieties surrounding adult authority

00:53:22.780 obviously we could never put a number on it but like the portion of kids who actually believe

00:53:29.200 in bloody mary and that something is actually going to happen versus the portion of kids that

00:53:34.420 are doing it because they've been dared to and somebody told them and it will make them look

00:53:38.940 cool yeah like it's they're it's whole separate groups and i would wager the second one is a lot

00:53:45.640 larger than the first one absolutely and it depends on your age you know like a an eight-year-old is

00:53:51.160 more likely to believe it than a 14 15 year old that kind of a thing but it is it doesn't really

00:53:56.960 frankly whether they believe it or not doesn't i don't know how much it matters whether they

00:54:01.500 realize it or not that is not the part that they are drawn to the most yes they're drawn to this

00:54:06.380 it's controlled risk yet again it's controlled especially going against adults and adult

00:54:13.000 sensibilities and how they were raised it is a controlled risk but you're not taking it alone

00:54:18.040 you're taking it with your friends you have that backup and uh even though they're probably not

00:54:23.580 going to help you probably actually going to make things worse but if more people were doing it

00:54:30.180 though that did contribute to the whole satanic panic it was so dumb but that it really goes

00:54:37.140 into it i did the halloween status episode like really goes into it of just these things get out

00:54:43.440 of hand due to fear instead of like logical thinking of just thinking about sheer numbers

00:54:51.700 would be enough to kind of disprove a lot of these things of a group did this at a sleepover

00:54:56.800 i don't think that that's really satanic of them because i don't know it'd be easy for religion to

00:55:02.320 point to it and be like you're trying to summon a ghost that whatever their goal isn't like yeah

00:55:07.640 they're trying to summon a ghost but like that's not really what it's about yeah per se yeah the

00:55:12.960 enduring popularity of the ritual has been interpreted through several distinct lenses

00:55:17.120 by folklorists. First we have social bonding and hazing. The shared experience acts as a rite of

00:55:23.520 passage for young girls, solidifying group cohesion, testing personal courage against

00:55:28.760 unknown futures and collectively confronting anxieties about womanhood. Then we have biological

00:55:36.120 maturation. The physical imagery directly correlates with puberty and the onset of

00:55:41.540 menstruation the apparition's bloody mutilated face or tales of her causing a participant's skin

00:55:47.500 to bleed mirrors adolescent fears concerning bodily changes then we have divination traditions

00:55:55.180 the mirror mechanics carry strong ties to historical fortune-telling practices

00:55:59.560 in 19th century britain and the united states young women attempted to foresee their future

00:56:05.060 husbands by walking backwards up dark staircases holding a candle and a hand mirror which is so

00:56:11.260 cute i've been steadily collecting when i come across them these like really old vintage magazines

00:56:18.520 this is from october 1971 amazing this one is from 68 so like i'm i've been trying to collect

00:56:24.700 these of there were way more rituals for halloween parties there was like uh the orange peel thing

00:56:32.320 um using an egg to i think that was the process that tituba from the salem witch trials used was

00:56:38.520 like uh the egg to try so that's why in my episode i'll be going to the whole history of sleepovers

00:56:44.060 and that kind of divination because it goes back so long ago and you can kind of see that evolution

00:56:48.680 of how these things change from something fun into something satanic and deviant you know

00:56:53.800 which in the end it really didn't it's just parents it's adults trying to regain control

00:56:59.420 which frankly kind of need kids to experiment kids should experiment especially with their

00:57:04.860 peers it makes it safer you know and legend tripping ostention it's not the worst thing

00:57:10.080 you can do especially with a group depending don't put your cars on train tracks kids but

00:57:15.240 you know what i mean yeah these modern suburban traditions share deep historical roots with

00:57:21.420 19th century spiritualism across the american northeast drawing directly on the era's fascination

00:57:27.060 with seances spirit photography and attempts to bridge the gap between the living and the dead

00:57:32.200 we are so overdue an episode on spiritualism my god oh yeah well for me it's the history of

00:57:39.920 photography because of how they did photography that influenced how we think we see ghosts what

00:57:45.960 you think of as a ghost was not what ghosts looked like before that kind of spiritual photography

00:57:52.160 the spirits that we think of now is kind of that semi-transparent that came from the beginnings

00:57:59.700 of photography and the kind of echoes of those plates and so before then ghosts were believed

00:58:06.540 to just look like normal people and so that's why if you look at older accounts of ghost sightings

00:58:10.960 they just look like regular people i saw this person oh wait they're dead like it was not the

00:58:15.920 same so it was influenced by these things that most people don't know about they don't know about

00:58:20.800 that shift in that transition into that well that's no that's like so fascinating because

00:58:27.420 it just shows like how

00:58:29.220 like every time there's a new technology

00:58:31.660 it does change how we engage with

00:58:33.780 our superstitions and our beliefs

00:58:35.440 and

00:58:36.120 yeah I mean I've been trying to keep an eye on it

00:58:39.700 with how these

00:58:41.440 you know how technology evolves but

00:58:43.260 I haven't yet seen the next

00:58:45.420 compelling thing

00:58:47.460 that adjusts how we view it

00:58:49.540 I don't know if we are starting to

00:58:51.560 just cling tighter to older

00:58:53.600 versions of things because we're so

00:58:55.320 done with current events and we're preserving it yeah you're gonna have to do that yeah

00:59:01.720 okay so what is the bloody mary legend telling us the bloody mary ritual serves as a mirror

00:59:10.800 held up to our deepest cultural anxieties about youth gender and maturation at its core sits the

00:59:18.240 archetype of the mirror witch an older vengeful woman who subjects children to a trial of courage

00:59:24.360 in the dark, inflicting pain when she deems it appropriate. As I mentioned, folklorist Alan

00:59:30.960 Dundas framed this encounter around the turmoil of onset adolescence and menstruation. The dark

00:59:36.700 bathroom, the blood, the mirror and the shadowy female figure reflect the acute self-consciousness

00:59:42.220 young women experience as their bodies transform. Telltale clues across folk variants strengthen

00:59:48.860 this link. When the ritual emerges with tales like The Vanishing Hitchhiker, the phantom frequently

00:59:54.160 leaves behind a wet spot of blood on the seat the act of flushing the toilet to safely banish

00:59:59.380 the ghost underscores this ritual ritualized cleansing of bodily fear i was just like it's

01:00:05.520 just the whole flushing a toilet that toilet connection is almost do you do you think that

01:00:13.020 it's more about cleansing of bodily fear or do you think it's a way to kind of i think we're

01:00:19.340 we're faced with this legend that a woman is scary whatever the age the old version the young

01:00:24.300 version like that a woman is scary do you think it's a way to kind of chip away at that fear by

01:00:30.060 adding this kind of almost not humility but like you know yeah no i do i can see that and i think

01:00:36.420 that like as i said before i think there's like the child aspect of it and it's like when it's so

01:00:42.240 scary and it's so unknown and like she can be so violent i think if there's something that like

01:00:49.420 is accessible for somebody to be able to do to like fend off the scary ghost you know you can

01:00:56.560 end it yes you can end it oh it's fine all you have to do is that i understand that yeah i think

01:01:01.480 i think that might be more accurate than trying to almost add an embarrassing note to the ghost i

01:01:07.200 i think that might be more you will have access to a toilet yes you can yeah this here's the off

01:01:12.600 switch yeah and i think even like even if that's not like the answer i think this is definitely

01:01:17.960 how folklorists have been framing it um which is you know there's there's merit to that because

01:01:23.580 they're a lot more learned in this than i am so this dynamic is deeply rooted in the rise of

01:01:28.860 modern suburban peer culture as childhood shifted into an era of early labor to a prolonged protected

01:01:36.020 phase of life, peer-led spaces like sleepovers allowed young people to create their own

01:01:40.920 subcultural rituals. Yet, these traditions carry complex social messages. In her classic study of

01:01:48.160 Indiana schoolchildren, folklorist Janet Langlois noted a striking duality. While the background

01:01:55.060 story paints Mary as a pathetic, abused victim, her manifestation in the mirror is aggressive and

01:02:00.920 violent towards her summoners the ritual embeds a troubling lesson suggesting that mistreated women

01:02:07.140 inevitably turn their vengeance upon other women internalize misogyny at its darkest and so that

01:02:14.180 last sentence makes that one sentence makes me wonder what if there's a lot to argue against it

01:02:21.220 probably a lot more but what if bloody mary is the manifestation of misogyny the anger that's

01:02:27.620 always described is it possibly actually just heightened embarrassment is it a manifestation

01:02:33.440 that possibly confirms to these young female summoners that they should be embarrassed they

01:02:39.600 should be embarrassed of this time of their month and that that embarrassment manifests as anger and

01:02:44.580 now this spirit is lashing out at her like spiritual sisters so to speak you know i think

01:02:51.180 there's more evidence that it is a more feminine representation but you can't deny that the anger

01:02:58.080 alone and who she targets it at is very misogynistic yes and this is like this has just

01:03:05.980 occurred to me as as you were speaking as well the aspect of i mean we've seen in some of the

01:03:12.140 stories mary is looking for a sympathetic child or somebody who will you know take pity on her

01:03:19.500 like you know a good-hearted child and they're the ones that like she is very merciful to and

01:03:25.620 then that is that is reminding me of like the conditioning that young girls go through

01:03:31.580 to be nurturing and to be sweet and protective and to show understanding and empathy even when

01:03:40.240 they're scared and i just think that that's oh that's that kind of gives me a chills a little

01:03:46.800 yeah it's it's amazing how quickly that can be shifted to be almost sinister yeah you know to

01:03:53.000 be generous even when you yourself are at risk you have to be polite or you might get murdered

01:03:58.160 you know yeah i never came across that to my knowledge i don't think i ever came across the

01:04:04.300 whole thing of that she would take pity on you ever which is why i wonder if that is more of a

01:04:10.120 uk perspective or maybe help maybe i'll go through my 50 literally 50 pages of notes and find one

01:04:16.020 but like i don't recall her ever being merciful which is why i kind of question that misogyny

01:04:22.020 note of like her anger is always targeted at little girls a little girl that she once was

01:04:28.120 yeah it's kind of heartbreaking really yeah yeah and for like judging by some of the theories about

01:04:35.140 who this mary figure started out as she could have been a little girl herself and it's just

01:04:40.420 you know after everything's happened to her she might look older or she might be perceived as

01:04:45.040 older um i'm trying to remember where i got that um about her taking looking for a child i think it

01:04:55.300 was taking pity on a child yeah oh i can't remember i think it might have been a day i think it was

01:05:02.300 one of her students papers um okay from historical witch trials and royal persecutions to modern

01:05:09.740 sleepover dares and global toilet ghosts, Bloody Mary endures because she adapts. She is not merely

01:05:16.460 a phantom designed to scare children in the dark but a living narrative mechanism through which we

01:05:21.900 process bodily changes, social taboos and the boundary between innocent fear and real world

01:05:28.060 violence. That interactive requirement, the need for physical courage and genuine belief is precisely

01:05:35.260 why the story refuses to fade as long as there are darkened bathrooms mirrors and a circle of

01:05:41.780 friends daring each other to test their bravery mary will be waiting on the other side of the

01:05:47.100 glass so when it comes to the by now two years of urban legend research that i've done when it

01:05:56.580 comes to the creation and spread and the evolution of them there's two thoughts in general that i

01:06:01.780 have and one is that urban legend stories act as a kind of public service announcement they

01:06:07.280 unintentionally give away the types of people and places that are feared by people in the local area

01:06:12.820 so for example there are mall abduction and mutilation urban legends where a stranger attempts

01:06:17.540 to kidnap a child the kidnapper is frequently a man but versions started to pop up after 9 11

01:06:25.180 where the kidnapper or kidnappers were middle eastern so the story evolves to address current

01:06:31.440 modern fears and to almost try to validate those fears even if the story isn't true if if you kind

01:06:37.360 of believe it is it validates your suspicion and your xenophobia my final episode of this

01:06:44.140 upcoming current episode will take a look at that same concept but the transformation is almost in

01:06:49.680 reverse the devil is the original villain but the urban legend starts to shift to fear a human man

01:06:56.060 It's with the same terror and potentially supernatural evil, but it's now given a mortal shell. And so like it can go both ways of who possesses that kind of supernatural power. And it's fascinating how what different areas find to be the real threat and how that molds such simple stories.

01:07:16.660 and though then again it's part of why these urban legends survive as long as they do the

01:07:22.320 story itself has to be simple with a few key facts and it will update with people the second

01:07:28.920 thing that comes to mind is that urban legend stories are crafted to influence people it's not

01:07:34.000 necessarily a conscious decision where people sit down and write out a narrative that fits the morals

01:07:39.480 that they have but it happens organically over time and i i just wrote for the third episode

01:07:48.020 where a woman goes on an exotic location uh on an exotic vacation and she comes back home and

01:07:53.920 finds that she has what look like bug bites within the next few days the bug bite on her face bursts

01:07:58.660 and baby spiders crawl across her skin now the lesson of that story is you don't go on vacation

01:08:05.900 to exotic scary locations with their scary monsters and this spider reflects the fear of

01:08:11.780 the other creature from an unknown land literally invading our very skin but if you go back to the

01:08:20.640 13th century a woman spends so much time on her hair that she's always late for church

01:08:26.080 the devil in the form of a spider drops down from the ceiling and bites her and she gets the exact

01:08:32.080 same fate as the last woman but the moral is now different this time it's not a warning against

01:08:37.540 distant locations but against vanity the 13th century story would split off to become the

01:08:43.300 spider in the hairdo from the 60s and 70s where women would style their hair up into you know like

01:08:49.200 a beehive style and you had to dedicate a lot of time in order to get that look and so that

01:08:55.680 continued note of vanity would occur but the story had split off in two different directions from the

01:09:01.880 13th century source and it's all just so fascinating because a lot of people I know

01:09:06.680 kind of wince and they ask what I'm interested in these stories but you can learn so much from

01:09:11.420 why are these stories breaking off it's hard for something like Bloody Mary of like what is the

01:09:16.180 original story but why are her motivations this way in the UK versus the US versus Hanako-san

01:09:23.600 these things do have sources but it is it's hard to find them over time and if they weren't written

01:09:29.260 down it's even harder but those are the two most significant parts of urban legends that i've found

01:09:33.720 in my research is just things we're not even aware of that no one thinks about yeah you know and you

01:09:39.380 just well you know especially as adults we hear a story now and we like well the ideal is if it's

01:09:46.940 something that's very clearly an urban legend then you know to go look it up and you're seeing like

01:09:51.980 well where's this coming from and who's saying this but unfortunately in an age of misinformation

01:09:55.940 we're not always aware when we're hearing an urban legend you're overestimating how much

01:10:00.260 people will do research because when i did halloween sadist last year i was thinking i was

01:10:04.480 mostly going to be seeing stuff from you know like the satanic panic era of the the 80s and

01:10:08.840 even the 70s no there there was recent facebook messages where a guy i believe was convicted

01:10:14.980 because he was saying he was going to be putting stuff in candy and people immediately but like

01:10:18.940 there were recent cases whether the person actually did it or not like they are more recent

01:10:25.360 than you'd think and people are so even though we think that we're enlightened because we're in this

01:10:30.600 age of very uh accessible information we think that we're enlightened but frankly not a lot of

01:10:37.920 people take advantage of that because they will think someone else already did the work for them

01:10:42.280 for example like in the comment section of a tiktok instead of just watching the whole video

01:10:47.620 they just immediately comment of what was this and it's like yeah watch it or google it whatever

01:10:52.560 so unfortunately i think humans are the same as they ever were that they would rather believe

01:10:59.660 something scary than to actually investigate because i don't know if that's because they

01:11:05.600 don't they want to be cautious and you want to prepare for something that could happen or if just

01:11:10.560 almost people want to believe in magic people want to believe yeah there's something beyond

01:11:16.900 just horrible humans they want to participate and like say if it is something like a facebook

01:11:22.500 post or like unfortunately ireland is like my like parents generation or like just slightly

01:11:30.080 younger than them are so vulnerable to facebook this happened on my road and this like this is

01:11:37.580 happening at the the local supermarket and everybody be careful and there's somebody

01:11:41.720 trying to like put kids in shopping trolley like whatever the fuck it is there's the whole virality

01:11:47.120 aspect of it as well people want to participate and be the one to be the first person to tell

01:11:52.860 to reshare that and show all of their friends what happened so that's the whole yeah so like

01:11:59.820 why would you waste time like verifying it when you could be the first person to share it you know

01:12:04.840 well and there's there was again in the halloween status episode there were people who they would

01:12:09.880 continue these stories but like sometimes there were some that would do this and if they exaggerated

01:12:15.020 it a little or they did this at the end of the day if someone was to confront them with a story

01:12:20.560 that they spread that they didn't know was true they can easily fall back on it was for the good

01:12:25.440 of the children and what harm comes from being extra sorry you know yeah yeah even the false

01:12:32.980 story is not creating harm which isn't necessarily true false stories can create a lot of harm

01:12:38.820 especially if it's mischaracterizing a whole group of people yes the xenophobia aspect of

01:12:44.920 a lot of these stories cannot be overstated i unfortunately from all these episodes i kind

01:12:52.180 of sit down i'm like all right it's gonna be one of like three different of like a few different

01:12:57.140 things it's gonna be like uh anti-women it's gonna be xenophobic or it's gonna be like it is

01:13:02.660 just a few things it's a formula shocked how everything goes back yeah it's when i write it

01:13:08.840 i'm like oh god how am i gonna describe this the 80th way you do a great job though

01:13:16.080 and that is our part two our episode well em we made it to the end of our little marathon

01:13:26.660 thank you so much for joining me and for helping me like break apart bloody mary because i think

01:13:34.780 i just i just thought this was gonna be like oh it'll be a little urban legend episode i'll tell

01:13:39.960 little urban legend and then nope it's never what happens it never will you've been a trooper for my

01:13:46.700 ramblings it's never short when you really hey i came into this with like a what was it a nine

01:13:51.600 page script in the beginning eight nine pages so i mean for it was never gonna be a short episode

01:13:58.740 was it but um i'm so glad that we had got to have this time to actually chat and like see each other

01:14:05.380 face to face um and i know right able to like yeah we've been like slowly like fangirling for

01:14:12.420 each other from afar which is um i know it's always nice when you get to connect i love this

01:14:18.580 episode that came out it's great just for across the ocean something beautiful about that do you

01:14:25.060 want to let uh ronan pine listeners know what your schedule is coming up and where they can find you

01:14:31.560 follow you listen to you this next season uh starts on the first saturday of september and

01:14:38.180 it will go all the way through to halloween you can listen to me pretty much anywhere including

01:14:43.560 youtube uh except for spotify because you know screw spotify so you can listen wherever you get

01:14:49.120 your podcasts in general i do have a website called back away slowly podcast.com and you can

01:14:55.660 find all of the sources and other information you can listen to the show there i'll be putting other

01:15:01.520 stuff there as it comes out we have socials on instagram and tiktok in particular but we're also

01:15:08.660 on blue sky and we do have a discord that you can find at a link that i'll give you guys this season

01:15:16.320 will be an extended uh urban legend season to go into the ones that we're not as familiar with

01:15:23.000 except for the bloody mary episode and i think uh the licked hand uh aren't you glad you didn't

01:15:29.580 turn on the light dead roommate is kind of smashed into two episodes because those are

01:15:34.320 so intertwined okay that it's kind of hard to pull them apart but for the most part

01:15:39.460 we'll be doing uh lesser known legends that people aren't as familiar with if anybody finds

01:15:45.420 anything interesting or uh extra information about anything that i've covered anything about

01:15:50.340 interesting do have an email at backaway slowly podcast at gmail.com if anyone finds anything of

01:15:56.300 interest please do because she i've never seen anyone's face light up at getting more information

01:16:02.380 it's uh it's very endearing it's why i live and breathe now this is why i live and breathe now so

01:16:09.540 even the commissions that i'm doing right now illustration wise which oh i do also have

01:16:15.280 illustration socials for mdillustrator yes that are connected to the show socials you can find

01:16:20.320 them there or um the username is artists plural say what artists say what for mdillustrator so

01:16:27.980 you can find my artwork there yeah even the commissions that i do right now are spooky

01:16:32.460 related i'll be doing collabs that are spooky related so hopefully i'll have even more stuff

01:16:38.500 that's happening but i'm so honored to be on the on the show this has been great no this

01:16:45.260 has been so much fun i kind of wish that like we had like a bunch of other things that like lined

01:16:49.700 up but who knows we can uh we can get together again call me if you need backup we'll do you

01:16:54.440 call me if you need backup or want to chat we can set a timer next time whatever you need perfect

01:17:00.200 for episode 55 bloody mary i am neve and i'm em and fuck yeah folklore fuck yeah folklore

01:17:09.300 Bye.

01:17:11.680 See ya.

01:17:39.300 We'll be right back.

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Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - October 14, 2026

Episode Fifty-Five Pt.2： Bloody Mary [feat. Back Away Slowly] Spooktober Urban Legends

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