One of the most common, chilling legends known all over Mexico is La Llorona. Her story has been passed orally and frightens many.
According to the legend, “the weeping woman” is seen at rivers and places where rivers used to be. She is in search of her children, and if you hear her, she will be crying and saying “Ay mis Hijos!”.
Many have claimed to have seen or heard her. One of the most common places she’s been reported to appear in is Xochimilco. Xochimilco is located in Mexico City and it’s a network of Canals. It was a water system constructed by the Aztecs. It is an area filled with tourism and famous for its many “trajineras”.
Throughout Mexico, you will hear many different versions of the legend. Some claim she wears a white dress and is beautiful while others say she’s just a spirit you see floating and you can’t distinguish her clothes. Others say she is dressed in black.
The origins of “La Leyenda de La Llorona” are unknown and there are many different versions of the story. One of the most famous ones, takes place in the Colonial Era. La Llorona lived happily back then with the love of her husband and two children. She was incredibly beautiful and blessed. Everything changed when she discovered her husband cheating on her. Out of rage, she decided to get revenge by drowning her two children in a river. After she realized what she’d done, she was filled with sorrow, and, now, she travels the rivers of Mexico in search of her two children.
Another version takes place ten years before the Spaniards arrived in Mexico. The Aztecs didn’t have written history, so when some Spaniards arrived, they wrote about the stories they heard from them. One of those people was a Spanish friar, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, we wrote a report which describes signs and warnings of Spain’s arrival that were observed ten years prior to the conquistador’s arrival.
One of these was that a weeping woman was heard crying through the lake of Texcoco (the lake on which the Aztecs founded Tenochtitlán). She would cry “Hijitos míos, pues ya tenemos que irnos lejos!” and “Hijitos míos, ¿a dónde os llevaré?. Which means “My children, we have to leave and go far away” and “My children, where will I take you?”.
The legend of La Llorona can vary, but it will never fail to scare many.
*KatyaMSL, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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