La Llorona

La Llorona ("The Weeping Woman") is a legendary ghost prominent in the folklore of Hispanic America. According to the tradition, La Llorona is the ghost of a woman who lost her children and cries while looking for them by the river, often causing misfortune to those who hear her.

Legend

Although several variations exist, the most basic story tells of a beautiful woman by the name of Maria who drowns her children in the Mexican river as a means of revenge because her husband left her for a younger woman. She soon realizes that her children are dead, so she drowns herself in a river in Mexico City.

Challenged at the gates of Heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, she is not permitted to enter the afterlife until she has found them. Maria is forced to wander the Earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned offspring, with her constant weeping giving her the name "La Llorona". She is trapped in between the living world and the spirit world.

Parents often use this story to prevent their children from wandering out at night. In some versions of this tale and legend, La Llorona will kidnap wandering children who resemble her missing children, asking her children for forgiveness and drowning these other children to take their place, but they never forgive her and she keeps trying. People who claim to have seen her say she appears at night or in the late evenings from rivers or lakes in Mexico. Some believe that those who hear the wails of La Llorona are marked for death but if you were to get out in time you will not be marked for death, similar to the Gaelic banshee legend. She is said to cry, ¡Ay, mis hijos! ("Oh, my children!")