Moon Mausoleum
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The urban legend of Veronica Jaja is almost like the Spanish version of Bloody Mary. Say her name three times into the mirror and you will get a visit from the spirit behind the mirror. But why would you risk it as she is mostly there to take your life?
The urban legend of Veronica Jaja is almost like the Spanish version of Bloody Mary. Say her name three times into the mirror and you will get a visit from the spirit behind the mirror. But why would you risk it as she is mostly there to take your life?
Veronica Jaja…
…Veronica Jaja
Veronica Jaja!
Say this name three times in a dark mirror and see what happens. Perhaps you will fall victim to the urban legend that claims to get the one that plays, dead.
Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain
This urban legend of Veronica Jaja seems to have come up pre internet in the early 20th century shares a lot in common with the Bloody Mary game and legend and is one of the Ghost in the Mirror games that is a legend about a ghost trapped inside of a mirror that can be summoned by uttering its name out loud a number of times.
According to the legend she is summoned after speaking her name 3 times into a mirror. Veronica Jaja will then appear and take your life. She comes as a dark figure and immediately starts to strangle those who summoned her, and she wont stop until she has killed them.
Those who do survive this ordeal though are said to be haunted by nightmares for their entire life.
According to the legend, there are plenty that summoned Veronica Jaja for fun, only for it to be the last thing they did. It is said that more than one have been found dead in their bedroom without sign of struggle.
But who is this Veronica that is summoned through the mirror? There are variant legends. One of them is that Veronica was a young girl herself that god mixed up in the supernatural. She was a teenage girl that played around with something she shouldn’t have, most often it is said that was a ouija board.
Through her careless game with the occult she managed to invoke some evil spirits and the next day she was found dead. Because of her lack of respect she became trapped between the world of the living and dead and became the very thing she tried to play around with.
Another version was that she was a vain girl with wonderful hair she brushed a hundred times every day. All she cared about was her hair, and she loved to stare at it in her mirror.
One day a man hid in her closet to play a prank on the girl with the beautiful hair. When she sat in front of her mirror and brushed her hair, he came out and held her mouth with a handkerchief so she wouldn’t scream. Then he cut off all of her precious hair.
She was too distraught to look at herself in the mirror without her hair after the attack. Because of her trauma she killed herself. In this version she can be summoned by looking in the mirror while brushing your hair 100 times as you summon her spirit by calling out her name three times.
The many variations of the Veronica Jaja game can remind a lot of what happened to the real Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro. She was a teenage girl that was found dead in her home without an explanation in 1991 in Madrid, before the growth of the urban legend of Veronica Jaja throughout the 90s.
According to her parents they blamed it on her fondness of the occult and it was said that she had played the ouija board game not long before her death as a way to contact her friend’s boyfriend that had died in a motorbike accident.
Seeing that many variations of the urban legend started to circulate in the late 90s, it is highly likely that these two things are connected. It was made into a movie based on her death and strange circumstances around it named: Veronica.
There is however, a long history concerning these so-called ghosts in the mirror, and there are those stories that predate the death of Estefanía Gutierrez Lázaro in the 1990s and we did have several stories about the ghost in the mirrors long before the 90s as well.
In this version her origin is much more vague and a lot older. She is sometimes called a daughter of Satan or a witch that was burned at the stakes centuries ago.
Some variations of the legend centers around a young woman named Veronica Jaja from northern Spain, who was accused of practicing dark magic and witchcraft and burnt to death for her crimes.
During the Spanish Inquisition, thousands of men and women were accused of practicing witchcraft and sorcery, like in the case of the Basque Witch Trials or the Witches of Zugarramurdi case that happened in Northern Spain. The fear of the supernatural and the unknown led to mass hysteria, with innocent individuals being persecuted and executed.
The witch trials served as a backdrop for the creation of many urban legends, including the Veronica Jaja legend. The tales of witches and their alleged powers became ingrained in the collective consciousness of the Spanish people, giving rise to stories that would be passed down through generations.
Over the years, the Veronica Jaja urban legend has evolved and taken on various forms. Different versions of the story have emerged, each with its own unique twists and turns. One popular variation of the legend tells that if you say her name 5 times it will make her more powerful and make her appearance more likely to happen.
There are also those that swear to say her name backwards or in reverse order will also help those that desperately need her.
While the Veronica Jaja urban legend may be unique to Spain, similar tales can be found in different cultures around the world.
The closest one is probably the Bloody Mary legend, and this too seems to have roots to much older history, tracing back to Tudor times in Britain with the Mary Queen of Scots who were known to have burnt countless people on the stakes to earn her name. But also with this legend, there are now so many variants that sometimes even cross over with each other and it is difficult to claim what came first
In Japan, there is the legend of Hanako-san, a ghostly figure who haunts the school bathrooms. Like Veronica Jaja, Hanako-san is said to appear when summoned, bringing fear and unease to those who dare to invoke her name.
As we come to the end of our exploration of the Veronica Jaja urban legend, one thing becomes clear – the enduring allure of urban legends. These tales of mystery and intrigue have captivated our imaginations for centuries, allowing us to escape into a world of the unknown. The Veronica Jaja legend, with its dark origins and chilling retellings, continues to fascinate and intrigue, reminding us of the power of storytelling and the human fascination with the supernatural.
So, the next time you find yourself in front of a mirror, take a moment to ponder the mysteries that lie beneath its surface. Who knows what secrets and legends may be waiting to be discovered?
Verónica (leyenda urbana) – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
