Informant-Wesley Ball: Legend told to him by his brothers while he was growing up in Marion, Indiana. Wesley Ball is a 50-year-old male from Marion Indiana. Conducted via phone interview.

“When I was growing up my older brothers used to tell me the story of Bloody Mary, I later learned they had learned it from someone in the neighborhood. The version they told me was that when I went to bed, if I had a dream about Bloody Mary, she would scratch me in my sleep. For a while they would come into my room every night and just talk about Bloody Mary. They told me that I would dream about whatever I heard before I went to bed so I would stay awake for hours trying to get rid of the image of Bloody Mary they had seared into my mind. They said that Bloody Mary was a ghost who lived in our town of Marion (Indiana). She used to live their and one day went crazy and killed her own brother, that’s what they told me. Bloody Mary prayed on little boys like her brother, my brothers said ones that looked especially like me. She would come to you in your sleep and you would wake up with scratches, and sometimes she even killed. I’m not sure where they created the legend since now that I am older I know its often told very differently, but apparently the story is still told in Marion today.”

The History of the Real Bloody Mary: The Bloody Mary legend is based of Mary Tudor the daughter of King Henry the VIII. He was famous for killing his wives. Mary saw much of the crime her father committed and was even disowned by him. When she became Queen of England she burned people at the stake and caused rebellion across the country, the people eventually gave her the name “Bloody Mary”. Some legend states that she even thought she was pregnant but never had a baby, and that is why so many of the Bloody Mary legends include standing in a mirror and saying “I stole your baby Bloody Mary”.

Radford, Benjamin. “Do You Believe in Bloody Mary?” DNews. N.p., 13 Oct. 2013.

Web. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://news.discovery.com/history/do-you-believe-in-bloody-mary-

131031.htm>.

Thoughts: I was raised with a different Bloody Mary legend, the classic. Where you stand in the mirror and say Bloody Mary three times with the lights off. I often did this with my friends for the thrill, of course nothing ever happened. I have never heard this story of Bloody Mary and I believe that the legend is probably only around Marion where my father grew up. I was shocked that such a different encounter existed, the boys seem to have just taken the name from the classic tale.