La Llorona

Interviewer: where did you hear this story?

Informant: My parents.

Interviewer: How old were you when you first heard it?

Informant: Probably like 6.

Interviewer: Do you know were they heard it from? I think they just kept passing it on, it’s like a Mexican story, where my parents are from. They heard it from their parents, I believe.

It’s like a story that’s supposed to scare us into listening to our parents. Let’s see , La Llorona is about a mother and her two kids. The two kids would never listen to their mother and they would always whine, complain, and cause the mother to keep crying. One day the mother, La Llorona, drowned the kids because they kept whining. They were not listening, so that was their punishment. But then La Llorona realized that was a mistake and she just kept crying, and crying, and crying. That’s what La Llorona means, “the crier”. She kept crying herself to death, so her spirit is of her crying.

Interviewer: So why is that supposed to scare you into behaving?

Informant: Because, if you don’t you get consequences from your parents and also if you misbehaved, La Llorona would come and steal you away or haunt your dreams

Interviewer: Is there a specific time of day that she comes?

Informant: probably when the kids are about to go to sleep, when they’re sleeping.

Interviewer’s notes:

Of all the variations of La Llorona, I believe this one to be the most unusual that I have heard. Instead of the cautionary aspect of the tale lying with the vindictive, ghostly Llorona, it comes from the fact that whiney children run the risk of being drowned by their parents. So instead of behaving because La Llorona might get you, one should behave because your parent’s might drown you just like La Llorona did to her kids.

for a different perspective see:https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lxl01