Did Mary have a mean streak?

On this, the day after Christmas, the Virgin Mary hovers protectively in countless creches on church lawns and beneath living room evergreens.

But watch out!

The Virgin Mary, according to believers of the Gothic era between about 1200 and 1300, sometimes displayed another side — a vindictive streak.

The sometimes violent actions of her images amounted to "Virgins Behaving Badly," as Utah State University's Alexa Sand titled her paper. The paper was presented earlier this year at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, held in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Sand, an assistant professor of art history at the Logan university, specializes in medieval art. In a research project, she examined the attitudes that writers of the 13th century had about religious images. These representations were not just decorative, she noted.

"They used them in their devotions," she said. People believed representations like statutes and paintings actually "functioned in a religious way."

During the Gothic period, Europeans "made an exceptionally large number of images of the Virgin Mary, and they were very, very devoted to her. They felt almost as if she was their own mother."

She appeared in poetry, and numerous churches were named after her. Mary was known as the Queen of Mercy, an intercessor for humans.

Interested in stories about the images themselves, she and an assistant, undergraduate student Courtney Hill, found and translated writings that helped understand the attitudes of the time. Hill was especially helpful with medieval Spanish documents, she said.

There aren't very many writings about the statues and paintings. Mostly, the Virgin Mary images are sympathetic, even to sinners. "In most of the stories about the images, they weep because somebody's committed a sin or they intervene on somebody's behalf," she said.

In the legend that later became the famous story of Dr. Faustus, a priest named Theophilus sells his soul to the devil in order to become a bishop. But he repents and seeks help before a statue of the Virgin.

"She basically comes alive and wrestles with the devil and gets the contract back," the document that Theophilus signed to sell his soul. She destroys the contract and "saves his soul."

Call that the Good Mary. Now for the other side of Mary.