by Elizabeth Hedger

Created on: December 18, 2011

A tall, beautiful woman with long black hair wanders beside a stream. Her white gown gleams in the moonlight, and the sound of her crying carries through the night air. "Ay, mis hijos! Ay, mis hijos!" – "Oh, my children! Oh, my children!"

She is La Llorona, the ghostly figure whose legend has spread into North America with the expansion of the Hispanic community. Her name (pronounced LAH yoh ROH nah) is Spanish for “Weeping Woman” and the origin of her story is unknown. There are many versions, but all share the central motif of a woman doomed to spend eternity searching through lakes and waterways for her murdered children.

The tales which reach furthest back in time for their inspiration set La Llorona’s life against the backdrop of Mexico’s conquest and colonisation by the Spanish. One claims that she was a commoner among the settlers, Luisa Gertrudis de Pañuelo, who killed her children after being deserted by her noble lover. She returned as a ghost after being tortured and burned at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition.

Another tells of an Indian princess betrayed by a Spanish nobleman who promised her marriage but wed another. Her fury drove her to kill their children with a knife her lover had given her, after which she wandered the street crying for them until she was caught and hanged. Alternatively La Llorona can be identified with the native princess Malinche, who was translator and mistress to the conquistador Hernán Cortés. Supposedly she preferred murder to seeing any child of hers raised as a Spaniard; however, the historical record shows that she later married a Spaniard and lived a normal life.

Other stories feature a woman named Maria. One tells of a poor peasant girl who spent her days toiling in her village and her nights captivating every man in the district with her beauty and her dancing. Two small impediments, however, made it difficult for her to spend her evenings completely as she wished: her two young sons. One day the children were found drowned in the nearby river, perhaps as an unfortunate consequence of their mother’s neglect – or perhaps, some said, because she had killed them.

Another presents a very different picture of Maria. In this version, she starts out as a devoted wife and loving mother. But that begins to change when her wealthy husband goes back to his old ways, drinking to excess and chasing after other women. Soon he returns home only to see his two

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