Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Urban Legends

Thought we would look at Bloody Mary ,Springheeled Jack and other urban legends which always make interesting stories.

Bloody Mary

  What you need is one candle, a strong heart and a big bathroom with a large mirror.
Turn out the lights, place your candle down and light it, stand and look into the mirror, chant slowly “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary”. And see what happens.

It is believed that by taking part in this game, and summoning the witch, it would have one of the following terrible consequences:
eyes being ripped out by the witch.
found with claw marks all over body.
disappear mysteriously from the bathroom and end up in the mirror with the witch for eternity.
view the horrifying image of the witch appear in the mirror.
driven insane or dropping dead on the spot at the appearance of the witch in the mirror.
suffer terrible claw marks all over face.

The other names she is known.

Mary Worth
Mary Whales
Hell Mary (for the appearance of Satan)
Bloody Mary Worth
Mary Worthington 

Queen Mary
There is a lot of speculation as to the names being taken from Mary I, Queen of England who reigned during the Tudor period. Mary Tudor was also commonly known as "Bloody Mary". Her nickname of "Bloody Mary" became attached to her when she
violently executed and burnt people at the stake for heresy throughout her reign of a little over 5 years.
She also was unable to bear children and suffered two phantom pregnancies, this is where it is speculated that the Bloody Mary game involving chanting "I stole your baby" or "I killed your baby" became tangled up with the now known Bloody Mary game. 


Springheeled Jack


                  Some of the sightings through history

Springheeled jack
In 1808, a letter to the editor of the Sheffield Times recounted how "Years ago a famous Ghost walked and played many pranks in this historic neighbourhood." The writer went on to identify this entity as the "Park Ghost or Spring Heeled Jack," and briefly described its ability to take enormous leaps and frighten random passers-by.

 Then Spring-Heeled Jack leapt out of the shadows in 1837.  At first he was just a rumor, and few Londoners believed the tales they heard of the attacks, mostly on young women, carried out by the mystery man. The rumors persisted as the number of attacks grew. He would hide himself behind walls or bushes and then leap out on unsuspecting travelers. Usually he would rip their clothes with the claws on his hands, and breathe flames into the victims' faces. Then he would bound away in huge, leaping strides which covered great distances at each step. The thing about the devil-man which most stuck out in the minds of the victims were his terrible, hell-like red glowing eyes, and his peculiar ringing laughter, which echoed in their minds for days afterward. 
  Spring Heeled Jack was again seen leaping up and down the streets and rooftops of Liverpool in 1904, then disappeared from England for close to seventy years. By that time, however, he had become notorious in the US. Jack's American visits were first reported in Louisville, KY in July of 1880. There, he was described as tall, having pointed ears, long nose and fingers, and was clad in a cape, helmet, and shiny uniform. He accosted women, tore at their clothing, and emitted flames from a blue light on his chest.
     Between 1938-1945, he made dozens of appearances in the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts, though there he reportedly belched flames rather than ejecting them from his chest. In Provincetown, which I gather has seen no end of strange things, his leaping forced pedestrians off the pavement of a busy street. When a dog cornered him, the animal's owner blasted Jack with a shotgun, but "the darned thing just laughed and jumped my eight foot fence in one leap," the man told police. 

Scariest Urban legends


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