The Unexplained S1E3 Bedtime Stories: The Legend of La Llorona

La Llorona: The Weeping Woman
Mythic Figure Throughout Time and Region

The Chira Project is covering different types of bedtime stories that will scare the pants off of little children. If you know of any kind of scary bedtime story, please share it with us. This is our Third bedtime story is none other than... La Llorona!


La Llorona is a Mexican legend that started back in 1502. http://www.lallorona.com/1legend.html La Llorona also called the weeping woman is a tale that originated from the later variants of Aztec fertility goddess called Coatlicue. More to that it originated in Mexico and was also told in Central and South America. It is about a young lady who chose love over her children and decided to drown them. This eventually caused her death and her ghost was forced to come back to the world to look for the children. Do you think La Llorona is real? 80% said yes and 20% said no. But, what do you think?

There are different version's to this story. So the following will be stories from all kinds of people across the world.

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La Llorona - A New Mexico Ghost Story

Retold by: S. E. Schlosser

Version I
Once there was a widow who wished to marry a rich nobleman. However, the nobleman did not want to raise another man's children and he dismissed her. The widow was determined to have the nobleman for her own, so the widow drowned her children to be free of them. When she told the nobleman what she had done, he was horrified and would have nothing more to do with her. As she left him, the widow was overcome by the terrible crime she had committed and went to the river, looking for her children. But they were gone. She drowned herself and her spirit was condemned to wander the waterways, weeping and searching for her children until the end of time.

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Version II
Once a poor man was married to a beautiful woman who lived in his village. The couple was very much in love, but the man insisted that they were too poor to have any children. When he found out his wife was pregnant, the man was very angry. He told the woman they could not keep the child. After the birth of his son, the man drowned the child in the river. His wife, too weak from giving birth to get up from the bed, pleaded in vain with her husband to spare the life of her child.

Several more sons were born to the couple, and the poor man drowned every one. The day the poor man took his fifth child to the river, his wife followed even though she was still weak and bleeding from giving birth. When he threw the child in the river, the woman went in after her son, determined to save the boy even though she did not know how to swim. The woman and her baby were swept away by the current and they both drowned.

The very next night, the woman's spirit returned to the river beside her home, wailing and searching for the sons she had lost. At first, the poor man was terrified by the spirit of his wife. He begged her to return to the spirit realm. But she did not hear him.

Night after night, the woman returned to the river, wailing and wringing her hands in her grief. The poor man became angry. But he could not stop the ghost of his wife from searching for her sons.

Finally, the sound of the wailing woman drove the man mad. He grabbed a knife and jumped into the river after the spirit to kill her. But the poor man did not know how to swim. The current swept him away and he drowned.

From that day to this, the spirit of La Llorona -- the wailing woman -- still haunts the waters and lakes, weeping and wailing and searching for her sons.

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La Llorona - A Hispanic Legend: The Weeping Woman

By Joe Hayes

This is a story that the old ones have been telling to children for hundreds of years. It is a sad tale, but it lives strong in the memories of the people, and there are many who swear that it is true.

Long years ago in a humble little village there lived a fine looking girl named Maria Some say she was the most beautiful girl in the world! And because she was so beautiful, Maria thought she was better than everyone else.

As Maria grew older, her beauty increased and her pride in her beauty grew too When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her! "When I marry," Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world."

And then one day, into Maria's village rode a man who seemed to be just the one she had been talking about. He was a dashing young ranchero, the son of a wealthy rancher from the southern plains. He could ride like a Comanche! In fact, if he owned a horse, and it grew tame, he would give it away and go rope a wild horse from the plains. He thought it wasn't manly to ride a horse if it wasn't half-wild.

He was handsome! And he could play the guitar and sing beautifully. Maria made up her mind-that was, the man for her! She knew just the tricks to win his attention.

If the ranchero spoke when they met on the pathway, she would turn her head away. When he came to her house in the evening to play his guitar and serenade her, she wouldn't even come to the window. She refused all his costly gifts. The young man fell for her tricks. "That haughty girl, Maria, Maria! " he said to himself. "I know I can win her heart. I swear I'll marry that girl."

And so everything turned out as Maria planned. Before long, she and the ranchero became engaged and soon they were married. At first, things were fine. They had two children and they seemed to be a happy family together. But after a few years, the ranchero went back to the wild life of the prairies. He would leave town and be gone for months at a time. And when he returned home, it was only to visit his children. He seemed to care nothing for the beautiful Maria. He even talked of setting Maria aside and marrying a woman of his own wealthy class.

As proud as Maria was, of course she became very angry with the ranchero. She also began to feel anger toward her children, because he paid attention to them, but just ignored her.

One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on the shady pathway near the river, the ranchero came by in a carriage. An elegant lady sat on the seat beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children, but he didn't even look at Maria. He whipped the horses on up the street.

When she saw that, a terrible rage filled Maria, and it all turned against her children. And although it is sad to tell, the story says that in her anger Maria seized her two children and threw them into the river! But as they disappeared down the stream, she realized what she had done! She ran down the bank of the river, reaching out her arms to them. But they were long gone.

The next morning, a traveler brought word to the villagers that a beautiful woman lay dead on the bank of the river. That is where they found Maria, and they laid her to rest where she had fallen.

But the first night Maria was in the grave, the villagers heard the sound of crying down by the river. It was not the wind, it was La Llorona crying. "Where are my children?" And they saw a woman walking up and down the bank of the river, dressed in a long white robe, the way they had dressed Maria for burial. On many a dark night they saw her walk the river bank and cry for her children. And so they no longer spoke of her as Maria. They called her La Llorona, the weeping woman. And by that name she is known to this day. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for, La Llorona might snatch them and never return them. 

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La Llorona - One Woman, Many Stories
By Angelica Galicia

The eve of the conquest of Mexico -Tenochtitlan by Hernan Cortes and his Spanish army was plagued by omens that Miguel Leon–Portilla enumerates in his book, “Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico”. Based on codices as well as from memories of the period, Portilla describes a woman who the natives called Cihuacoatl (the serpent woman), who wandered among the temples of the great ‘Mexica’ capital announcing a tragedy: “O-h-h, my children, the time for our departure draws near. O-h-h-h, my children! Where shall I take you?”

However, it was during the colonial days when the legend of the weeping woman gained the necessary strength to filter into Mexican folklore, and although there are innumerable versions as to the origin of this macabre and heartrending cry, the most popular one is told in detail herein:

Every night at eleven, when the curfew sounded in the capital of New Spain, the inhabitants would shut themselves in their houses of mud and stone. The streets were left deserted. It was then that the darkness and the silence were torn by the long and distressing wails of a woman. “Oh, my children”, she repeated monotonously, causing even the bravest hearts to shudder.

Those who dared to look out from their windows managed to see the silhouette of a woman dressed in white, floating above the street’s stone pavement; she would stop at the city’s Main Square. Later, the ghostly figure would head in the direction of Texcoco Lake, where she’d disappear with the first rays of the dawn.

But, just who was this woman whose face could not be discerned? Why did she cry so pitifully? According to the story, there was once a beautiful native woman who fell deeply in love with a Spanish gentleman. The gentleman felt a great passion for her, but relations between a nobleman and an Indian woman was positively regarded with disapproval, so he maintained his romance with her in secret. Three children were born to the mother, who adored and tirelessly cared for them.

Over time, the woman sought to formalize her relationship with the gentleman, who began to evade her. She soon found out that he had agreed upon a convenient marriage to a wealthy Spanish lady. Humiliated by the man she loved so much, the woman was driven totally mad and drowned her three children in a river. She committed suicide afterwards. At the gates of Heaven, the woman was asked about her little ones. “My Lord, I don’t know where they are”, she replied.  Thus, she was condemned to search for them for all eternity.

There are those who assure that, in her zeal to be accepted into Heaven, the murderess Weeping Woman carries away the firstborn children between the ages of 1 and 5 years-old to present them before God as her children. That’s why the proximity of her cries is so feared by all.

Other versions affirm that the woman who wanders about crying nightly among the labyrinth of building in Mexico City is none other than ‘Malinche’;  Hernan Cortes’ mistress, who’s accused of having betrayed her race because of  her love for the conqueror.

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The Legend of La Llorona S1E3

La Llorona( The Weeping Woman)
















Links: 
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?id=9307416

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/gh-lallorona.html

http://ambergriscaye.com/25years/lallorona.html

http://cclitgirl.hubpages.com/hub/legend-of-la-llorona-or-weeping-woman