Informant: Nicolas Williams, who grew up hearing this story from his mother. It always scared him but its a common story in Mexican culture and he loves telling it. Collected via interview.

La leyenda de la llorona (The Weeping Woman): “This tale was told to me by my mother when I was growing up and is a well known story in Mexico. The story goes that there was a woman who was really beautiful and because of this she thought she was better than everyone. So she wanted to marry the most handsome man in the entire world. Then a man came who seemed perfect and he was handsome and wealthy and a horse rider. So they became engaged and they got married and had two children and the perfect life. Then the husband started leaving for a long time and only coming back for the children not the woman . The woman was mad at her children for getting all the attention and started to hate them. One day the woman saw her husband with another woman. She became so upset that she threw her children in the river and drowned them. My mother would always yell at that point and start acting like the woman crying for dramatic effect. The woman then killed herself from sadness. They buried her but the story is that there was crying coming from her grave, it was La Llorona crying asking for her children. The people saw a woman in a white robe and because she was crying they called her the weeping woman. My mom told me this story because she did not want me going out alone at night and she said if the woman caught me she would drown me. It definitely scared me and everyone knew not to wander late at night because of La Llorna.

Thoughts: This reminds me of a story I was told about a witch who lived in a windmill by my lake house. We were not allowed to go near it at night because there was a creek my parents were scared my cousins and I would fall into. So they said there was a witch that stole children. La Llorna is a well known Mexican folklore unlike my story but I still see the similarities in parents creating stories to protect their children.