Loira do Banheiro

0:20 A cool friends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I am still your host and you are still listening to Sousto, the podcast of paranormal folklore from Latin American cultures. Welcome back and thank you so much for returning from the grave from the other side, thinning the veil once more to join me for another episode. Super quick updates today. Number one, the Susto spell Book Club is back. We are back on that's right, and this month pageon subscribers have voted for the month of February to read Hatchet Girls by Dianna Rodriguez Wallach. I will put a link to that book in the description of this episode. Also been posted on social media, so make sure you're following at sousital Podcasts on every platform for any and all updates on that so that we can get started on that reading. I just want to remind you all that Patreon subscribers again do you get to vote on what we read, and they also have access to the book club discord channel throughout the entire reading.

1:16 So if you feel like it, if you're interested in receiving some extra perks for that, then you can visit patreon dot com slash social podcast and decide if one of those is for you. As always, that's going to be linked in the description as well. As always, please continue to support the show by sharing it with your girl friends, leaving positive ratings and reviews where everyone are listening. That is the easiest way to support SUSTAL. And finally, please send in your stories to be featured on a Letters from the Beyond episode. You can visit my website or my link tree, hit that submit story button and you can send in a written story, a video, a photo, and EVP if you happen to catch something that'd be really cool to be shared either on an episode or on socials. I also encourage you, speaking of this to ask your family members.

1:56 I meant to. I don't know if I said this over the holiday break, but I feel like the holiday break the winter break is always a really good time because a lot of people come together. To ask your family members. To ask your friends if they have ever encountered something scary or if they have a scary story or something like that, because that is the best timpt to do it, and it's fun. You know, you're all together, you get to share these stories. So I'm gonna encourage you to ask your loved ones for their stories and either have them send it in or send it in on their behalf. And you know it could be really cool. They could end up possibly hearing it here on Susto, so you know, really use those resources. After all, that's basically how the show got started, right, was asking people about their stories. So I'm gonna encourage you to, in a sense, be part of the production of Susto. I mean, sending in anything alone is part of that process, right, But you know, going out in story scouting, so to speak, asking your family and friends for their stories is also perfectly acceptable by me.

2:51 I love hearing them. With all of that said and done, we will go ahead and get into today's legend, which is the Loida de Bagnerro. Every school has a bathroom with this kind of story. Not the clean one, not the one near the main office with lots of foot traffic, the one at the end of the hall, the one with the broken lock, the one teachers pretend not to notice. No one completely agrees on how to summon her, only that you can. Some say you must use the last stall.

3:49 You go inside, you lock the door, and you kick it once twice three times. Then you flush once twice three times, you step out, turn the sink on, turn it off, on, off, and on, and then you say something you're not supposed to say, a curse word, three times, loud enough that your voice travels through the pipes. Others say that the stall doesn't matter, that mirrors are the real doorways. You stand in front of it, look yourself in the eyes, and say her name once twice, three times.

4:37 And then there's the one that no one likes to talk about, the one that isn't loud, the one that doesn't involve saying anything at all. You take a strand of your own hair, just a little, you flush it down the toilet, and you wait for her. No matter the version, the ending is always the same. Something changes, The air thickens, and the mirror's fog, And if you're truly unfortunate, you hear someone behind you. They call her the Loidra de Bannerro or the blonde in the bathroom. And once you learn the rituals, you start to understand something truly terrifying. She isn't really summoned by words. She's summoned by your belief alone, relying on your fear to manifest her. But this story doesn't begin in a school.

5:36 It begins in eighteen sixty four in the city of guaratin Guetta, Supaulo, with the birth of a girl named Maria Augusta the Olivea. She was the daughter of Francisco de A sis Olivea Borges, the Viscount of Guaratinguetta, a powerful man, a wealthy man. The family lived in a large man but Maria Augusta was happiest by herself playing the piano. She was especially close to her mother, Amelia. With her mother's guidance, Maria Augusta grew as a talented, educated, but sheltered young woman. Then, at fourteen years old, Maria Agusta's life stopped belonging to her. Her father arranged for a marriage to Francisco Antonio Dutra Rodriguez, a man twenty years older than she was at the time.

6:32 This was normal marriages were strategic. Financial but Maria Agusta did not want this marriage. Despite her objections, she was forced to marry. For four long years, Maria Agusta lived a life unfulfilled and restrained, at least until her father died for her. The tragedy of losing her father also meant that the last chain holding Maria Augusta in place had also died. At eighteen, Maria Augusta did something she previously thought impossible. She fled. She left Brazil for Paris, taking with her the family heirlooms and money to find the life she had never been allowed to live. In Paris, she was free what she did there, how she lived, who she became. History did not record much of We do know that in eighteen eighty six she had her marriage officially annulled and declared to her family that she would never return to Brazil.

7:36 She was twenty two when she was finally fully free from her old life, but only five years later, in eighteen ninety one, she was dead. The cause was never fully confirmed. Some believe it was rabies, a rare and terrifying illness in humans, marked by fever, delirium, and an unbearable thirst. It is said that on the day she died, all of the mirrors shattered inside the family home back in Brazil. No explanation, no witnesses could agree on how or why. News traveled slowly. Then it was. Only weeks later when her mother, Amelia learned of her demise that they realized the mirrors had all fallen right after Maria Augusta's death. Despite knowing that Maria Augusta wanted to stay in Paris, Amelia had her daughter's body sent back to Brazil by ship. Along the way, looters stole everything that was packed within the coffin, her jewels, her clothing, even her death certificate. When she finally arrived, Maria Augusta's body was badly decomposed, and yet her mother chose to display her in a glass coffin. Those who attended described her as unrecognizable, a figure that barely resembled the young pianist.

8:59 They remer Her corpse had been propped up and stuffed full of cotton to try to make her look more alive and to hide the decay. The body remained like that for days weeks. Neighbors would visit and comment about the horrifying sight. Some said they even saw Maria Augusta ask to be set free. Then Amelia had a dream about her daughter. In the dream, Maria Gusta asked for one thing to finally be buried. Soon after, she was laid to rest at the Lord of the Steps cemetery in Guaratinguata and the family eventually left the mansion, but the house did not become quiet. Former employees reported strange things, the sound of a piano playing by itself, lights turning on in empty rooms, faucets opening with no one there, and when in nineteen o two the mansion was converted into the Councillerro Rodriguez Davis State School, those disturbances didn't stop, they only intensified. One of these disturbances happened on a normal day in a normal high school in South Paulo.

10:14 Late in the morning. A group of girls slips out of class to hide in the bathroom at the very back of the school, the one no one checks unless something goes wrong. Gamilla, Beatrice, and Luana had done this before. Skipping class was not new for them. They sat in the same formation they always do, Gamilla on the counter, Beatris on the floor, and Luana on a closed toilet lid. With their phones out. They shared videos with one another and their laughter echoes a little too loudly off the tiles. They were killing time and avoiding going back to class until Camilla came across something a strange video. Hey you guys, check this out. Beatrice watched along. Slightly confused, she asked, what is this? Gomilla grinned as she answered, I've heard of this before. Other kids do this at their schools all the time. Luana realized where this was going and replied with fear.

11:16 No, please, I don't want to. Gomilla knows she has both of their full attention. Now it's the loidra Lubagnero, let's call her. Piatrice laughs and says it's fake, that the story is just for little kids, that they're too old for that, but the idea sticks in their minds. Gamila teases them, come on, if it's not real, prove it a dare. The other two hesitate, but begrudgingly agree, convincing themselves it's just a story, right. They choose the last stall and kick the door once twice, three times. They flush once than twice and three times.

12:03 They come back out with Gamilla and Bietri's laughing louder now, but Luana grows more nervous. All three then stand in front of the mirror and Gamilla begins to chant loira do bagneiro. Bietris laughs, Loira do bagnero. Luana chuckles nervously and glances at the door. Gamila cries out of final time, Loira dough Bannero. The lights flicker and all three girls stop laughing. The mirror fogs slowly from the edges inward, and then they see her in the mirror, standing behind them, in front of the stall they just left.

12:48 A young woman. Her hair is blonde, almost white. Her dress is white, too old fashioned and stained. Her skin looks like it's coming off, her body decaying and ragged and stuffed into her nose, her ears, and her mouth is cotton. The spirit raises one hand, but not threatening, motioning the girls to come closer, inviting them to look. She points to her mouth. The girls start crying. Beatrice says no, Camilla can barely muster a whimper. We have to go. Luana tries to make a call on her phone, only to realize that the battery is now completely dead. But the spirit doesn't advance. She just waits and points again to the cotton. Shaking, Luana realizes what the spirit wants and steps forward. Her hands tremble as she reaches up to the spirit's mouth and pulls the cotton free. The spirit's mouth opens and she makes a sound that doesn't belong in a living throat. The spirit points to the sink behind the girls. Biatri spins around and turns on the faucet. The spirit lunges forward. She drinks desperately, and then blood pours from her mouth, thick, dark. It spills

14:21 into the sink onto the floor, more blood than should be able to come from one human. The girls scream and all three run from the bathroom. They tear down the hallway, crying, shouting over each other to warn everyone she's. Real, the loid dubagnetro. She was there. By the time anyone went back to check, the mirrors were clean and the stalls were empty, but the faucet was still running. Welcome back, well friends. Before we say anything, everybody, go to the restroom and wash your hands, and then look in the mirror and say, loira do bagnetro three times.

15:17 So obviously this is very much a bloody Mary kind of story, right, I think, at least myself, that is what I am more familiar with. I feel like we have all heard of bloody Mary. You go in the restroom, it's like a fun thing to do with each other at like slumber parties or whatever. I don't think I have ever actually done it. I was about to say maybe I should try it and get it on video, but I don't think I want to play with that. I don't like. We have had this conversation and we're going to. Touch on it again about bathrooms as like portals, and I think that's where stories like this come from. Right, we'll get into it, but we're going to run through these sources. So the first one we have here is from a wiki fandom and this is just an entry on the Loira do Bagnerro. And this is a legend that comes out of Brazil, so you may have heard it.

16:01 Listen the amount of takes that I have for this recording of me just trying to say these things right because Portuguese, you would like it. It's not Spanish at all. There may be some similarities, but yeah, it's like my mouth doesn't move in those ways. So I had to like really really fight to try and say those things the right way. So let me know how I did. Any Portuguese speakers out there, I may have to call Johnny and Eileen from Wuickyoo because there any time they say anything in Portuguese, or they come across like Portuguese movies. It's like their accents are beautiful Brazilian movies. Really, So this source says, certainly the best known of all urban legends in Brazil, Loira Dobagerro, is the ghost of a blonde girl who was murdered in her school bathroom, and from then on her ghost haunts anyone who dares to disturb her eternal sleep. So there's two kinds of legends that we married for this one, and really, honestly, those two legends in a lot of these sources, they also are linked together anyway, So it's like the modern legend that is influenced by the original story, like based off of true events, kind of thing. Right For the legend, it says, once there was a blonde girl, either a student or a teacher, depending on the version or who was telling the story. She was beautiful and smart, more than any other girl in her class, which made people envy her until one day when she was in her school's bathroom, skipping class. In the version where she was a student skipping class, she died for unknown reasons. Anyone who believes she was a student will tell you that she was murdered by other girls in the school who were jealous of her beauty. Anyone who believes that she was a teacher will tell you that it was because of students who were very angry at the grades that

17:32 they received. And still there are those who, regardless of the girl's identity, believe it was just an accident. She just slipped and hit her head on the toilet. Regardless of the reason for her death, she was dead to everyone but herself. So this is a case of a haunting where the spirit doesn't know that they have passed on. Right. This was I was very excited about this story when I came across this legend and Jeff and I were planning it because again, like we started off the story, every school bathroom or every school has this bathroom right where they're like, that's the haunted bathroom. That's the bathroom you don't go in. I think one of my stories growing up was when I was in high school, we had we didn't have like a big high school, but we did have auxiliary campuses kind of like they were all clustered together, like really close. So there was like the main high school building and then there was the vocational building, which is there was like the shop classes and all that kind of stuff, and then there was the newer one, which was interesting that it happened here.

18:26 It was kind of I forgot what they're called. I think it was like the CTE. Yeah, the Computer Technology Engineering building where all the computer classes are the computer labs. I heard a story that one weekend there was a janitor that was cleaning I think Friday night, over the weekend whatever, and it was dark out and they went into the bathroom that was there, and I'd never used the restrooms there after I heard this that they went into the bathroom there and they walked in and they saw a woman who was like. An all white, long dark black. Hair, which I think fits the description of so many cryptid fams that we've talked about on sustill before. But that, yeah, she was this. Woman all in white, long black hair, but she didn't have a face, and that the janitor walked in and saw this person there and like was screaming, and course freaked out and ran out of the building and left and like never returned. I don't know how true the story was. I want to say it happened when I was in high school. There but maybe I wasn't taking classes there that year.

19:16 I don't know. I just I remember taking classes there for one year and then never going back when I didn't have to because I didn't want to use that restroom. And it's interesting that. It was the newer building of the ones while I was there, but it was You would think the older one would be haunted, right Anyway, The point is, I'm sure that you all have had your own version of the story, which. I would love to hear. As always, please send it in use the submit story button on the website and the link tree, or DM it to me. Just get me the story. I want to hear it because I don't know why those stories are always super creepy. Maybe because the bathroom is a vulnerable place. Again, we're going to talk about that. I don't want to jump the gun, but okay, this continues. There is this one I think is like a specific telling of or like one version of this story. Her friends hadn't forgotten about her. They wanted to continue to commune with her. They didn't want to let her go, so they were looking for a way to communicate with her, and they discovered all they had to do was go into the restroom where she died, and after saying loidra domagnetro three times in front of the mirror, they had to slam the door three times, flesh to huy at three times, and swear three times, and then she would appear, which is very specific instructions. I'm like, how did you discover this way to some in your friend? For me, I would need like three slices of pizza, three episodes of Real Housewives, what else?

20:28 I don't know. Yeah, these are like very specific instructions. Is very not complex, but it's like there's many steps to this ritual, and this idea of threes happens over and over. Right, it's the three knocks that chanted the name three times, the three flushes, the three kicks, whatever, And I wonder if there's any connection between that and like the Holy Trinity, right, Father's Son, the Holy Spirit. You think of exercism movies or the Witching Hour. It's at like three in the morning because it is the inverse of the time of when Christ was crucified. So yeah, I wonder if there's any connection there. Right, it seemed like an obvious one, and then this jumps into the real person and it says this legend supposedly arose from a true story about a girl called Maria Augusta the Olivea Borges, born at the end of the nineteenth century in guaratin Guetta. So, Paulo, this word this city was so hard for me to say.

21:16 I want to say in Spanish as Guadatingueta or Guadatingueta. But when I looked at the pronunciations, I kept I was hearing guadatin Guetta, like the ua is not as emphasized, and the tea is more like a tea or a ch sound versus the I don't know. This isn't a phonetics lesson. I'm not a words doctor. But this continues. The young woman would have been forced by her father to marry at the age of fourteen with a much older man, and happy with the marriage, the girl would have sold her jewelry and fled to Paris at age eighteen. At the age of twenty six, Maria passed away. It says. The terror continues when the young woman's mother decides to take her body back to Brazil, and until the tomb was built, the corpse was on display in the glass coffin in the family mansion for public viewing. After a while, while, her mother decided to bury her daughter. Some say after having several visions of the girl asking to be buried when she went for it, which is so sad. I'm like later, grief is weird, though, right, you know, we don't.

22:11 I can see this happening to this day, of people postponing a burial for whatever reason or like not wanting it to. It's just it's weird. You know, there's no one way to grieve. So you would think, like, oh my God, please put her body to rest, let her rest, let her go. But you can't really tell somebody how to do that. But I would think, you know, in these times, if the body's decomposing, it's like, all right, come on, it's starting to smell around here. I don't know, this says after About a decade later, in nineteen oh two, the house was a given or donated to the Cuinteleiro Rodriguez Atives State School, and that's where the roomor started that the spirit of Maria Augusta was roaming the school because it was the house. The mansion was turned into it, and that's where the story of the Blonde in the bathroom started right, and it says that this was attributed due to a mysterious fire in part of the building in nineteen sixteen. According to the legend, her spirit walks through the school bathrooms, opening faucets to quench her thirst and asking people to bury her. This next source that I have here is from ndmais dot com dot b r and the entry is the Blonde in the Bathroom existed.

23:15 Discover the real story of Maria Augusta who gave rise to the legend. Again. All direct links to these sources will be in the Susto Google docs on Patreon. But this says true or false story of this young nineteenth century aristocrat has become one of Brazil's most famous and enduring urban legends. Wow. This is actually published in August of twenty twenty five, so very very recent, and it starts blonde in the bathroom, Blonde in the bathroom, Blonde in the bathroom. Legend has it that the sequence of words has the power to summon an evil spirit when said in front of a school bathroom mirror. And let me tell you, I'm very happy that I'm doing this in my office. There are no mirrors in here. I'm not gonna use the restroom for a couple. Of days just to be safe. Sorry, Jeff, You're gonna have to be the guinea pig for this, because, like I said, I'm not playing games with these chanting and vadimier things because I do think mirrors are portals. But this continues if you grew up in the two thousands like me, which is not really a flex anymore because it's like twenty one year olds were born in two thousand or twenty six year olds. Ugh, anyway, I hurt myself. Anyway, this continues if you grew up in the two thousands, you've probably tried summoning the spirit of the blonde Girl in the bathroom. I haven't, and I shan't with your friends during recess. What you didn't know is that the most famous myth in Brazilian schools was inspired by a true story.

24:27 So what is the true story. Of the Blonde in the bathroom or the loidra l'bagnerro. The life story of Maria Augusta de Olivea Borges was dark as her legacy. The young woman was born into an elite nineteenth century family in Guadatinguata in the interior of South Baolon. She was the daughter of the Viscount of Guadaitinguta. I'm getting better at saying the word Maria as I go along, who was a powerful merchant and coffee grower who gave her all the luxuries that an aristocratic family could provide at the time. However, and there is a picture here that is said to be of her or of the mansion. But I'm going to try and find see if I can find like real authentic pictures of her. She does this is not a blonde person in this picture, so I don't know. But it's also an old picture. This is nineteenth century, so who knows.

25:11 This continues. However, life stopped smiling on her when she turned fourteen, and in the mid eighteen eighties, an arranged marriage was set up for it because they're very common, especially among noble families, and she was forced to marry Dutra Rodriguez, a man twenty one years her senior, which means he was thirty five disgusting, pig gross. The young woman couldn't bear the unhappy marriage, and four years after the ceremony, when she was eighteen, she sold her jewelry and ran away alone. To Paris, France, without knowing that she would ever return to Brazil, at least not alive. So in our story and maybe the detail will come up. One of the sources was that her father passed and then that's kind of like the obligation to keep the business going and thriving was done with and once he was done, or once he passed, that was hard to say it that way, but you know, once he passed, it was like, well, then the business has gone with him.

25:58 So I don't need to be in this marriage anymore. I'm out. But here it's just that she fled, She like up and ran away. This says what happened in Europe is a mystery. What is known is that the family received news of her untimely death seven years after her escape, when she was only twenty six years old. And there's a photo of her father here allegedly, and I will be posting these photos on the social media post for this episode. This continues. Rumor circulated that the cause of death was rabies, but her death certificate disappeared, which further contributed to the case becoming part of the popular imagination. So people just ran off with this story, you know, very similar to the vampire Resipiscoperu, which also did involve a cruise. Just kidding travel by boat or transporting a body of corpse by boat.

26:39 Things go missing, things were maybe stolen, somehow they're gone. There's no documentation that says for certain this was her cause of death, but allegedly that's what was on there before it was robbed or swiped. So this says again that her body was brought back to Brazil and her mother commissioned a special tomb for her daughter that while it was being prepared, her remains were displayed in a glass Hoffen in the family's mansion, again for the public people were visiting. Her mother had the dream decided, okay, it's time my daughter's asking me to lay her to rest again. There's another picture here that they're saying is her, but she looks like a brunette. So I don't know where this blonde idea. Maybe it's that you know she was a brunette, But blonde in the bathroom is like more fun to say, or loyda the weagnetto. I don't know. The family's neighbor also claimed to hear Maria Augusta playing piano music. And to be able to smell white roses, the young woman's favorite perfume. Only then was Madia finally buried, but the supernatural accounts never ceased.

27:31 It was too late. They you know, pissed her off, tortured her soul. She didn't want to be there and she didn't want to be on display. Over time, the family mansion again was transformed into the State school, and that's where the legend began to take root. And again, staff, students, employees, they report hearing footsteps in the hallways, door slamming, and of course strange occurrences in the bathrooms. This is a really pretty building. Wow. Then they had money, because this is huge. This looks like it was built to be a school. It's so massive. I can't imagine it being a house. Then this talks about the fire again. It says in nineteen sixteen, a fire of unknown origin destroyed part of the building, increasing the belief that the spirit of Maria Augusta inhabited the place and that she was responsible for starting the fire.

28:12 The students believed that the spirit of the young aristocrat still haunts the school bathroom, supposedly tormented by cause of death. You know, the thirst and the rage, which would explain the reports of the faucets turning on by themselves. And this says that her tomb in the Basos Cemetery in Guadatinguata can still be visited, and the old school continues to be the subject of rumors and curiosities. I wonder if the school is actually still running. This photo looks very modern day, so maybe it's still a school. It's still going. And there's a section here at the end that says, how do I summon the blonde in the bathroom? Says that each region of the country has a variation on the legend, but the most common accounts involve the following steps. Going to the school bathroom when it's empty, usually knock three times in the door of the last stall or on the bathroom door, flush the toilet three times, or turn the light on and off three times, and then calling out for the blonde in the bathroom in front of a mirror.

29:03 Again. Very bloody Mary, very bloody Mary, very bloody Mary. Inspired kind of story, right. The next ross that we have here is vocal media slash history, and the entry is the legend of the Blonde bathroom ghosts inspired by the story of Maria Augusta the Oliveira. This is published two years ago, very very very recently. By this says Hiraya, thank you so much for posing this and this just like it is a really nice write up of the entire story. But something that I thought was interesting was towards the end, is it, says Furthermore, the story of the Blonde in the Bathroom Ghost also shares similarities with the foreign urban legend of Bloody Mary, which keeps coming up.

29:53 I keep saying it right, which involves invocation rituals in front of a mirror. Both legends evoke fear and curiosity, with historical roots and mutual influences. Although folklore has evolved over time, the legacy of Maria Augusta dea Oliveda the Blonde Bathroom Ghost remains alive in people's imaginations. So the next time you hear someone mentioned Blonde in the Bathroom or Bloody Mary, remember that these mysterious stories have deep roots in real events and the rich folklore of Brazil and the world. Which makes me think of this like invocation of someone of a spirit through the use of mirrors, And we're going to get into that kind of here, and I know I'm trying to save these ideas for a little bit later, but there. I have also heard of certain rituals of when people want to communicate with their loved ones who have passed on, they will use mirrors for divination because mirrors are said to be portals, and sometimes you use like an obsidian mirror, you use a regular mirror with like water cant like. It's like there's an actual practice to using mirrors as diven objects of divination. And so I think that also feeds into this type of story, this type of legend and folklore of you know, mirrors are used this way, so they can be used to summon this like one kind of entity that many people know about. So, speaking of the Bloody Mary folklore, because that is something that I am very familiar with that I grew up hearing about, I wanted to look a bit more into that too. So this is from eb sco dot com. I don't know what the acronym stands. Where I tried looking for it, I probably didn't poke around hard enough, but it's eb sco dot com. The entry is Bloody Mary Folklore and this says Bloody Mary is the name of the central figure in a game that is often played by young people.

31:25 During this game, the participants stand in front of the bathroom mirror and call out to the spirit of Bloody Mary. The number of times the participants say the spirit's name varies from three to one hundred times. I've only ever heard it three times. Sometimes participants are told to prick their fingers or spin around in a circle after calling out to Bloody Mary. All right, the pricking the finger, that's blood magic. You're doing too much with that. Don't do that, and this continues if performed correctly. Legend says that Mary will appear in the mirror. In some variations, Mary appears as a bloodied ghost, That's what I've heard of, while in others she may be a witch, an old woman, or a young girl. What Mary supposedly looks like varies widely from region to region. Depending on the legend. Mary may scream at the participants or try to scratch their cheeks or eyes.

32:06 I feel like the. Version that I've always heard is that she appears as a bloodied woman, bloody Mary, of course, and that she screams, which is why I will never play this game. You're right, this continues. Who or what the legend of Bloody Mary is based on is unknown, and the story's background largely depends on locality. In addition, the name used during the ritual is sometimes Bloody Mary, but it can also be Mary Jane, Maryworth, Mary Wells, Mary Johnson, or a number of other alternatives like Loidra l'banerro. In some versions, participants are told to say I believe in, followed by the spirit's name. So this is getting more into that kind of ritual of trying to communicate with a loved on on the other side. As you're calling you, you would say, I believe in. I am calling to let me speak to This is where I'm like getting a little bit more chilly, like I don't know. This is getting a little too real magic for me and less game. Some legends claim Mary was a witch who died during the famous Salem witch trials. In others, she is a young girl who was murdered by her father for killing her mother quote killing her mother during childbirth, which is wild logic, dude.

33:03 People have suggested that the Bloody Mary legend originated with Mary, the first Queen of England, who ruled for five years in the mid fifteen hundreds, also known as Mary Tudor. And then this says, in real life, the Catholic Mary was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants during her reign. This Mary Tudor one would make sense because there's also this idea of spirits who are damned to wander the earth for their wrongdoings, right, so I would assume that this is a punishment for Mary, the first Mary Tudor, you know she was. Her prosecution of Protestants earned her the name Bloody Mary, which sounds really violent. So it's like, well, guess what now in the afterlife, you're trapped in Bathamere's stinky However, this continues. Additionally, Queen Mary experienced several miscarriages and false pregnancies, which may be why some versions of the legend say that the Mary apparition appears with a dead baby in her arms. Despite this, many experts do not believe that the legend is based on the English queen, though her story may have contributed to some of the themes over the years. Definitely makes sense.

34:02 Then this wraps up here and says, in many versions of the game, young women go into a dark bathroom and stand in front of the mirror. Some rules call for participants to flush the toilets to make Mary go away after she has appeared interesting, flush her away. Folklorist Alan Dundees, the author of the book Bloody Mary in the Mirror Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics. I'm buying this book. I need to read this anyway. This says that Alan associated the legend with anxiety concerning the onset of puberty and particularly menstruation in young women or young people with uteruses. The essential elements of the legend, the bathroom, the blood, the mirror, and the apparition of a woman all can be linked to the self consciousness that young women experience as they go through adolescence, according to experts. Very interesting, very ins y'all listen, y'all know I love I love anything that is academic about the spooky, the paranormal, the supernatural.

34:55 It's just like, I eat that up. It's so fun to me. And then the last source that I have here is from good old atlass obscura at liss obscure. I love you. If you're listening, just say hi. I want that would be I'm going to put that on the universe. I don't know, there's some sort of partnership, some sort of something. I want to work with Atlas Obscura because I love their website. They have the coolest content on here. We're always going back to them for resources. So yeah, let's hey, at Less Obscura, what is up? Slide in my dms. I'm gonna slide yours too. This says, get to know your Japanese bathroom ghosts. There are several to keep track of, some scarier than others. So as you know, I am always looking to tie these stories interculturally, trans culturally. So we've covered Brazil, right, and then we've definitely heard this story all over the world. But the origins vary, right, So there's the one in Brazil, the Loyd of the Bonetto and Maria Augusta, and then there's Bloody Mary, which may be tied to English royalty. And so I wanted to jump around the world and this came up in my starts for like Bloody Mary stories, these bathroom Japanese ghosts, and what my eye was that it's multiple right. This says, as any horror film fan can attest, the bathroom can be a scary place. From Janet Lee's infamous shower scene and Psycho to the bloodspewing drained pipes of Stephen King's It, there's no shortage of genuinely startling imagery connected to laboratories.

36:15 What a good word, laboratories. I'm done saying bathroom, I'm done saying restroom, and it goes to the lavoratory. But when it comes to conjuring up the most terrifying possible interruptions to our most private moments, no one beats Japan that hit on something. And this is where I want to introduce these ideas the bathroom and I if you have never checked them out, please go listen to the Paranormal budas they have a really great theory about this phenomenon. And they call it portal potties instead of which I think is so cute, instead of porta potties. Right, portal like the potty, is a portal because it is the perfect combination for supernatural phenomenon. Right, It's so this right here, This is a perfect segue into it before we actually go into the rest of this list here, but this says that it's at our most private moment, so one that is already it is a very vulnerable space when you go into the restroom. And this is kind of a silly take, but it's real, Like it makes sense to me. When you go into the restroom, you're not looking over your shoulder. Typically there is a door and it's locked. Right, it is private time you have to yourself to hopefully relax do your business. Whether it's using the toilet or taking a shower. You know, both are things that should feel relieving hopefully, right, hopefully you're not stressed using the toilet or taking a shower. But it's also that thing where you're like, you know, you're washing your hair and you're able to just close your eyes.

37:35 That's one place where you can do that. And you know, sometimes if you're on edge, you're like, oh, I couldn't even close my eyes while washing my hair, right anyway, So it's a very vulnerable place, is what I'm saying. You're kind of just like stripped down literally and spiritually, and it could leave you open to some things. Right, And then we've already spoken about mirrors. I truly think mirrors our portals can be used as portals. I've told a story on Sosto before but also the idea of mirrors used as divination alone are portals and you put them in the restroom, combined with your vulnerability, combined with water. Right, we know that water is a conduit for spirits. It is a source of energy. And there is flowing water everywhere in the restroanm It's in the shower, it's in the toilet, it's in the seink. There's gonna be pipes wrapped around some wather probably, so another addition to that recipe.

38:19 And then there is the idea of the stone. So usually the toilets are made of porcelain, right, and some people believe that porcelain can hold energy as well. So you have just this perfect combination of these things really stir up some spooky stuff, right, And I'm going to try and get a clip from the paramal poot Us to put that in here, but if not, please make sure that you go check out their podcast and I will link to the episode in the description below as well so that you can go hear that because their take on it is really cool. I've heard them speak about this at live events and on their show and just us you know, shooting the shit, talking to each other and they have spoken about that, and I think it's it's a great theory. It makes total sense to me anyway. So we're gonna get to know our Japanese bathrooms, right, our Japanese bathroom spirits. So immediately before I even say any of these, obviously, please forgive my pronunciation of these, I'm gonna try so. This first one, I believe it is Toide no hano co san, and it says one of the best known of Japan's bathroom spirits is Toide.

39:20 I feel like I want to say it in Spanish. It's either Toide or Dode no hano cosan or Hanoko. Of the toilet. Like all ghost stories, the details of Hanoko's origins very somewhat from telling to telling, but in general, Hanoko is said to be the ghost of a young girl who died around World War two and now haunts school bathrooms. Classic see this story is everywhere around the world. I love it so much. Usually described as wearing an out of fashion red dress and bob haircut, she can be summoned by going to the girl's bathroom on the third floor, knocking on the third stall three times and saying, are you there, Hano cosan, are you there, Hanksan, are theresan? Or maybe just knocking three times and then saying it. Depending on regional variations, Hanoko will respond by saying yes, I am, or a ghostly hand will appear if someone enters the stall. They could also be eaten by a three headed lizard. Okay, this continues the last outcome. Notwithstanding, Hanoko is generally just a spooky presence meant for a good scare. Haniko, I've been saying that wrong. It's Hanako, not Hanoko. Hanako has appeared in numerous anime series and television shows and is pretty much a star.

40:22 Wow. The legend is well known because it is essentially an urban legend associated with schools all over Japan since the nineteen nineties. It has also been used in movies, so it became part of a popular culture, not just orally transmitted or local folklore. Says Foster, Hanako, not Hanoko. Do it no Hanako san okay that is so cool? This next one is Kashima Riiko. Hanako is not the only young girl said to haunt the bathrooms of Japan. She said, move over, Hanniko. There is another legend of a young girl named Kashima Reiko, said to be the ghost of a girl who died when her legs were severed by a train. What her legless torso now haunts bathroom stalls asking unlucky visitors where my legs? The correct response on the Mation Expressway could save your life. Otherwise, it is said that she might tear a person's legs off.

41:07 Oh my god, this says. Kashi Marieko is a bathroom centric variation of another Japanese ghost story known as Dekka Deke, which also features the ghost of a young girl who was cut in half by a train. There's also a version of the Kashi Mareko story that suggests she will appear within one month to anyone who learns your story. God, damn it. No, okay, what do I have to tell her? On the Mation Expressway. On the Mation Expressway, girl, don't even come here. Your legs are on the Mation Expressway. Thank you? There, skip over me. Why do they say this? I'm so mad. This is like the Ring. Great, thank you for making me watch it. This says, I'm gonna go tell Jeff about this right now. This continues. This setup probably sounds familiar to anyone who knows the popular Ring franchise exactly which Foster compares to the liminal aspect that makes bathrooms so ripe a setting for horror. Quote note the classic j horror film and book Ringo, in which Sadoko is in a well. The association of the well as a mysterious place has precedents in earlier Japanese folklore. Also, if we think about the imagery of Sadoko coming out of a television set, we get the same idea that the television is a portal to another world. She literally crawls from another world into our own. I'm so mad that they put this ring aspect in this, and now I know I have a month.

42:18 We literally just hit this is It's February first, I'm recording this. What a great start to February. The next one is aka Manto. It says it's not all scary little girls. One of the most gruesome of Japan's bathroom ghosts is aka manto or the red cape, also sometimes called auai manto or blue cape, or in some variations a ka kami aoi gami red paper, blue paper. This modern spirit is said to resemble a person completely covered by a flowing cape and hood, wearing a mask that hides an irresistibly handsome face. He is said to appear to people, usually in the last stall, again as they are going to wipe, asking a stranger questions. Sometimes the spirit asks red cap or blue cape, or offers red paper or blue paper. Choosing red will lead to aka manto flaying a person's back, a red cape or another gruesome, bloody death, while choosing blue will cause the spirit to suffocate you getting clever and choosing any other color will just cause you to be dragged to the underworld. The only way to escape Acamantha's punishment is to decline its offer entirely, so don't try and get smart. So, okay, I have a question. It says red cape, blue cape, red paper, blue paper. So if you choose red cape, your back gets flayed. If you choose blue you get suffocated.

43:26 But what about the paper? What is red paper and blue paper? Is that like the paper that you're gonna wipe with or what happens? I don't want to know, which is why they say, just decline the offer, Just say no, thank you, Go to the next all the next one here and there is a very silly picture with this or it looks silly to me. I'm interested to know what is going on here. This is the Kappa, it says, one of Japan's most famous mythological creatures. The Kappa is said to sometimes be found in bathrooms. However, it is not specifically thought of as a bathroom spirit, but more generally as a creature associated with water. Usually rivers are ponds, but there are a lot of legends in which the Kappa appears in an outhouse where it harasses people, especially women, says Foster. By the way, the Foster that I keep referring to is Michael Dylan Foster, who is the author of the book of Yokai Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. I want this book too, okay, And the silly picture it's captain here, It says. Kappas may be repelled by farts, that's what's going on. But they were known to appear in outhouses all the same.

44:26 All right, lots of farts going on this week. I just made a post on socials of this. I believe South African pastor that it was said that he farts on people because it's God healing them like he heals people with God's power through farts. I don't know, but anyway, in this painting, it is a person at like a water some sort of water bank. These looks like steps leading into a river, lake or something, and they have their pants down and they're farting on a yokai and the yokai is like ah, poo, pooh, no good. And then the last one is Akaname. The goblin esque yo kai spirit is filthy and dishe with a long, protruding tongue, and according to Foster, it is primarily known for licking the filth. Off of bathtubs.

45:07 While not seen as a particularly frightening creature, the image of a gross little sprite licking the dirt off a tub is not exactly friendly. No, that's gross. That sounds like Margaret because she goes in after we take a shower, and she rolls around and she puts her face in the spout and she comes upstairs and we're like, why is your face wet? Because she's she's an economy, that's what she is. She's a little goblin rolling around in our tub. This wraps up here. Japan's bathroom spirits may appear to be uniquely ready to haunt your every bowel movement. But ultimately there are good reasons bathrooms everywhere tend to be a source of fear. Ooh quote. You are exposed and vulnerable like I said, literally naked, like I said, at least in part, so there is a certain amount of danger or uncertainty associated with being there, says Foster. The bathroom is not a place you want to stay longer than necessary to complete the job you came to do. I definitely want to check out this book because I love all the quotes from Michael Dylan Foster in here. All right, y'all, those are all the sources to welcome back well friends. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. As always, please continue to support SUSTO by leaving comments, ratings, reviews whereveryonere listening reviews like this one from Lefty x three. Lefty says, thrilling podcast.

46:26 Glad I found this podcast. Love listening to your uploads, especially when I'm home alone. I is emoji. I've definitely skipped through some content because it's too scary, but I'll return to it when I'm feeling brave enough. I'm not gonna lie. This is one of my favorite things to hear as a content creator. As a podcast, I have to find my instinct to be like, no, please don't skip it. I need you to listen. I need to get the listen right. But whenever people tell me, oh, I can't listen to it at this time, or I had to press pause and come back, or I skipped ahead like it was too spooky, that makes me feel so good because sometimes I feel like. Am I being spooky enough? Like I don't know, And I know that's very very subjective, right, so I may not think it is. Someone might think it is too spooky, like Lefty here and other people you know who knows. But I love hearing this. I'm like, Okay, I'm doing my job. I'm scaring you all good. Lefty continues.

47:15 I've had my fair share of experiences from one of my previous homes. Maybe I'll share via email sometime soon. Lefty, Yes, please email it to me if you have my email, or go to my website sustopodcast dot com or my linktree that's linktr dot e e slash sustal and click the submit story button and send it into me. Please. Lefty finishes here. Love listening. Also, I get confused when you say Aiden or Adrian. Is Adrian your middle name? Either way, both names rock. Thank you Lefty so much. So. The name thing, I feel like I maybe have spoken about this before. So my given name is Adrian Adrian, but when one of my little sisters was very young, she was starting to speak and she was learning our names, she couldn't really say Adrian, so she would say Aidan and it.

47:56 Just it just stuck. And I was like, oh, that's really cute. And so I just took the name and I ran with it. And so it's like, most people now know me. I think more people now know me as Aiden versus Adrian. But I still like my given name. So I'm like, either way, different people use it for different reasons. I'm okay with either. I will respond to both. So yes, thank you so much, Lefty for leaving that beautiful five shining stars review. You can also support Sustal for just three dollars or more a month by visiting patreon dot com slash Sustal podcast and signing up for bonus content, early and ad free episodes, and other exclusives. You may be watching a video version of this. You may be seeing the videos that I'm posting on YouTube ad free. That's for every tier on Patreon, so go check it out see if any of those work for you. Of course, a special thank you to this episode's patron saints. You are Liza Rachel, Alejandra Luthor, April d Josette, Mandy, Lori, Genie, Desire, c Ashes, Ndessa rachel A, Asusena, Marlen, Chata, Lany Ricaddo, Vanessa, Mariza monermal Iris, mad Selina Nightingvell, Clint, Rachel w and ARMANI thank you all so so much. I will talk to you in the next episode. I will haunt you later and until then not the Soustas. Bye.