Horror Tale of La Llorona

Horror Tale of La Llorona

A long time ago, in a small town in rural Mexico, lived a girl with long black hair whose beauty was such that all the young people of the town wanted her. From the richest to the poorest, they had all tried in different ways to win her heart, but she did not decide for any of them. She almost seemed to be waiting for someone else, someone from outside.

Until one day, that person arrived: a merchant who went from town to town selling her belongings, and who fell madly in love with her. And to the surprise of all the people, she reciprocated. Their love was so strong that the merchant decided to settle in the town and together they founded a home., in which three precious children were soon born. The townspeople looked at the recent family and dreamed of one day having a similar fate.

But love is a passing bird, and the marriage soon faced her first troubles. The kisses and hugs with which the merchant had showered his wife began to become scarce, and she began to spend more and more time away from home, drinking in the tavern and in company who knows who.

The woman, increasingly lonely and sad, spent her days locked in the house, waiting for her husband to return to try to relight the flame. And she often she stayed late into the night waiting for him.

What was announced finally happened. Her husband, infatuated with another woman, younger and without children, left home never to return. The woman, driven mad by her lack of love and abandonment, she was seized with an uncontrollable rage and she wanted to break everything that she would remind her of her husband.

She destroyed photos, gifts, dresses, made a whirlwind of rage. Why was that happening to her, precisely to her, who could have had anyone at her feet? Why had she fallen in love with this man who was now abandoning her to her fate? She would see what she is capable of! She would make Him regret for life having betrayed her!

When the fumes of rage finally dissipated, it was already midnight and the woman was away from home. She didn't recognize anything around her, as if she was waking up from a bad dream.

She was in the river that runs not far from the town, submerged up to the thighs in the cold and transparent water. Around her floated the immobile bodies of her three young children, whom she had dragged along because in her innocent faces she also saw the face of her treacherous husband.

Her regret then shook her like a tremor. How had she been able to do such a thing? What fault were her children for that lack of love? Her pain made her howl like a wounded animal all night. And so it was that the morning sun, looming over the horizon, found her on the river bank: she literally died of so much pain in her soul.

A) Yes, what had been a model family in the village became a shameful tragedy. Mothers cursed the name of the woman who had killed her own offspring, and the drunks in her tavern made cruel jokes about her, whom they nicknamed "La Llorona."

Weeks after the bodies were buried, the peasants of the village began to hear her wailing and her crying again, somewhere near the banks of the river. Many said that it was her soul in distress for her, while a few organized to go to the river to have a look, hoping that it was a animal or something similar.

One morning, then, they lit their flashlights and walked towards the river, until the cry of a heartbroken woman reached their ears. At first they were only wailing, groans of pain and high-pitched screams, but as they got closer, already with goosebumps, they could make out some words: “my children, my children!” The voice screamed. And when the first ones appeared on the banks of the river, she finally got to see her: dressed in white as if wanting to remarry, but she was soaked from head to toe and her hair was long, black, covering most of her face.

Of those brave people who went to see her in the river, few dare to tell what happened after her. It is known, instead, that very soon some went mad, became terminally ill, or committed suicide, without there being any explanation about it. But the voices of the people, those who know who La Llorona really was, know that her spirit is still looking for her children and her husband, trying in vain to reunite with them. That is why it is not necessary to walk at night near the river, especially if from its banks you can hear the disconsolate lament of a lonely woman.

What you should know about La Llorona

What you just read is just one version of the legend of La Llorona. Also known as La Sayona, La Cachona, La Viuda or La Pucullén, among many other names, it is one of the legends best known and disseminated throughout Hispanic America. There are, therefore, numerous accounts of its supposed origin, adapted to local folklore and traditions.

Much of this is due to the fact that it is a reinterpretation of a pre-Hispanic story, whose origins can be traced to the Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara or Guaraní cultures. Some researchers think that it may be a Hispanized version of certain Mesoamerican deities, from the Purépecha, Zapotec, Mayan or Nahua tradition, in which female specters abound that punish men.

The legend of La Llorona was transcribed for the first time in the 16th century, in the work General history of the things of New Spain (1540-1585), written by the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún (c. 1499-1590), thanks to whose studies we can today know much about the colonial times of Mexico. According to the Friar, the legend reached their ears thanks to the indigenous Mexica, In whose tradition she identified herself with the goddess Cihuacóatl.

References:

• "Llorona" in Wikipedia.
• "The true story behind the legend of the weeping woman" in Infobae.
• "La llorona; true (and terrifying) legend ”in National Geographic in Spanish.

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