Text: “They were living like, in the countryside, you know, whatever, they have this house. And they had, they had like a few maids and one of the maids and one of these maids was like, ‘I like you know, I, there’s this boy that I’ve been talking to, that we’re going on a date.’ And so, you know, my, my great, great grandmother was like, oh, yeah, right, like, ‘Go girl’ or whatever. So. So then, this guy, he comes on a carriage. They hear this carriage like approaching the house. And then and then they hear a whistle. It’s like, really sharp whistle, like, and the girl goes running out running out of the house. She’s like, in the middle of some duty that she’s like cleaning or something. She drops it and she runs out of the house. And they’re like, ‘Well wait, you can’t leave what’s going on? Let me meet him’ like that. ‘About what?’ And she runs out and they take off and then they don’t even see the carriage by the time that they leave, they get out of the house and like ‘oh shit, like, where did you go?’ So whatever. The kind of person she knows he’s kind of like, what? Like, she just left in the middle of like cleaning this thing. Like, what the hell? She comes back later that night? Or no, and then they’re like, oh, it’s taking her forever to get back to like, what the hell? She comes back later that night and she smells. She smells like, like, they don’t know what she’s been doing like grease and like, like, some like burns. Like maybe it’s like some barbecue but just like a weird smell. And she’s kind of dirty like she’s she’s a little she’s not, you know, put together and then like, what the like what has happened, but she was like, ‘I know it was amazing. I had the person whom I love. Oh, I love him. I love him. And they’re like, oh, like you just met. So whatever.’ They’re kind of like ‘okay, that’s weird.’ The next day they they hear the carriage and then and then she goes running up they’re like ‘whoa, okay, we have to meet him but the same thing happened, that she was running suddenly. They’re like ‘okay, she’ll come back tonight. I guess whatever. This is annoying. We got to talk to her about that and she doesn’t come back that night

So they’re kind of concerned. She gets back two days later, in the middle of the day, like, they’re like she like kidnapped like, I don’t know. So she comes back. And she’s, dirty, like, she’s actually like got dirt on her face. She’s got dirt in her like, fingers like, she smells like shit. Like, even worse than before. She didn’t she hasn’t showered you know, she hasn’t bathed or anything. She just gets back their like, ‘what the fuck?’ So they go bathe her. And they’re trying to get answers, like ‘what’s, what happened? How did you get like this? Like, what happened?; She’s like, ;No, no, oh my God, it was amazing. Oh, you don’t even like it was amazing.’ Um, but she’s not telling them anything. ‘Because like, I’m in love with him. You know?’ And so then, at this point, they’re like, ‘okay, you need to rest, like, rest off, we’re gonna take care of you. Like, you can’t, like you have to. She has like cuts like scrapes. A few days go by, and they hear that carriage. And then they hear whatever, but she’s in but she’s still resting in her chambers. She immediately, she gets up and she starts to try to run out. So they were already kind of anticipated it, so they have one of the guards come in. And he’s like, ‘no, no, you can’t leave’ and they’re trying to stop her. And she’s this, like, little small little main woman. She breaks through his grip. She like, you know, she gets through it. She runs out. And so they finally see, they see the carriage kind of going in the distance. And they’re like, ‘oh, shoot, we have to follow her.’ But then they try and follow, and they lost it already. They lost it. They can’t follow her. She’s gone for a week. Another week. They’re like, ‘okay, she’s dead this time. Like she, I don’t think he must be, I don’t know. He must be like torturing her and she escaped every time. She’s I don’t know,’ they don’t know what’s going on. Finally, a month later, she comes back. And she is really fucked up. She’s got bruises, she’s got cuts. She’s, she’s so dirty her like she’s getting like infected wounds. And like, she smells like rotten flesh. Like she smells like, you know. And so they so at this time, they put her in the bath. hey shut her in a room and they have a guard outside waiting by her room. They have everyone taking care of her, like she’s not getting away. And then a few days go by nothing happens. Nothing happens. And then, you know, my great grandma, like a great grandmother. She was like, ‘I can’t deal with this girl anymore. Like she’s running off like, we’re sending her to our cousin’s place.’ So they get her in a carriage. They get the guardsmen, like we’re sending her off. And then they hear back, the guys come back that were in the carriage and they said, ‘;she left in the middle of the night. You know, we’re driving, we’re going through the countryside, and we hear a whistle and we hear another carriage and she took off. She jumped out of the carriage she took off. And we lost her’ and she was like, ‘well, that’s it. She’s never coming back.’ And so yeah, so they were like, Okay, that’s it. A few months go by, and she’s back and she’s back at their front door. She’s, she’s ruined. She’s like, half dead at this point. She’s, you know, and she, she really she stinks. It’s like rotten, burning flesh, like disgusting. So like, they don’t know what to do anymore. They’re like, ‘okay, this is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna have, we’re gonna have guards, and we’re going to keep watch. And the second that we see that guy come with his carriage, we’re going to follow him.’ So they have guards like sitting in a carriage ready to go whenever he comes. A few nights passed by and she’s getting a little better. Whistle, carriage, they’re ‘like okay, we’re after her.’ So they let her run off, and they follow her immediately. And so this carriage is just, it’s going so fast. But they’re, you know, they’re keeping up, keeping up. And then it’s it they’re going like, who knows where they’re going through the mountains. They’re going all over. And finally it takes like, my grandmother, she was at home. Well this happened. So she heard the story after but, so this whole time the guards are, you know, they’re the people in the carriage. They’re following and following. And they come back without the girl. And my grandmother was just like ‘what happened?’ And the guards were like, ‘we followed for a day, we followed for like 24 hours. It was nighttime. We could barely see them but we saw, we reach this peak on a mountain, and they finally stopped, the carriage stopped and they got off. And so they we were like, ‘what what’s what’s here’ so we get off. We go try and look. But it looks like they have like, disappeared into like this, like mountain. They don’t know what it’s like they go further, they go further, and we see this huge gaping hole in the mountain. And there’s fire coming out of the hole. And, and we peek inside. And there’s a pile of burning bodies and demons’ and they said it was, it was like, you don’t know what it is. It’s like, they were red. Their skin was red. And they were all dancing around the fire. And then we saw the maid. And she was with this man. This man is huge man. Like, dark, like dark. Like you couldn’t see his skin. So it was so dark. And they were dancing. They were dancing around this fire of burning bodies. And they came back and they said ‘we saw hell. We saw hell’. And they’re like, ‘Okay, fuck that girl.’ She never came back

“Oh, I also forgot to say that in the in the first story when she comes back, she was like well I live in another, like the maid, but then they’re like what happened and she said she said ‘I’ve not been harmed this is just from the hurt of life,’ like her scars.”

it’s just the hurt energy every time she come back. I wasn’t harmed. It’s just the hurt of life. It’s just the hurt of life. Yeah. Yeah. Oh no. Oh, we and I also forgot to say so the men come back and they’re like, oh, like we saw hell. So then they’re like, so then they got all the military men. They’re like, like, Let’s go investigate. And they go back to this mountain. It was gone. The hole in the ground was the pit of hell. It wasn’t there anymore.”

Context:

This memorate was told to the informant by his Colombian grandfather. Colombian folklore frequently uses the devil. 

Analysis:

This tale illustrates a “slippery slope” image of a supernatural evil which seduces and possesses. The repeated refrain “Just the hurt of life” suggests some sort of psychological entrapment used to justify her increasingly damaged condition upon return home. The rural setting that frames isolation as a catalyst for the supernatural with Catholic undertones. The repeated motif of the uncatchable carriage, the guard’s futile attempts to restrain her, and the final vanishing of the hell-mouth mountain evoke themes of loss, the limits of rational control, and the inescapability of spiritual forces once they take root. Like most oral folk horror tales, the story functions both as entertainment and as a cultural warning.