The Ghost of the Weeping Woman

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
​She is mostly known as La Llorona, which is Spanish for the weeping woman. Depending on the source her story can vary, but she is commonly described as being a mother who either drowned her children, or they drowned in an accident and she is perpetually searching for them, usually in the vicinity of bodies of water. She is to be feared because she will drag an unsuspecting child and drown them thinking it is one of her own. 

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Many think that the Llorona is more than just an urban myth

The story of La Llorona dates back to the arrival of the Conquistadores in the American Southwest. She is described in different ways; either as a beautiful but sad woman, with flowing black hair that haunts bodies of water in an eternal search for her children. In another version she is an emaciated, thin woman who is always searching for children to steal.

The origins of the story are varied, but what every story has in common is that she is the spirit of a mother who has been damned to seek her children.

Christened "Maria" the most common of Hispanic names, she is said to have been a poor but beautiful woman who when night fell would change her peasant garb for a white gown. Then she would make her way to the fandango, which were parties where locals gathered to sing and dance. Maria was the mother of two young boys; it's understood their father was gone, so many time she left them alone in order to attend the fandangos and revel in the admiration of all the men there. One day the boys were found drowned in the river. In this version the children died due to her neglect or even by her own hand.

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The legend of La Llorona is known through the American Southwear

Another version of the origins of La Llorona is that she was married to a wealthy man. She gave him two sons, but despite her beauty after some years of married life he would leave for days to enjoy himself with other women and to drink. 

Upon his return home, he would lavish his attention on his boys, but ignored his wife. In some twisted way she started to believe that if the children were not around he would love her again. She also believed that depriving him of his sons would hurt him as grievously as he had done to her.

One day after seeing her husband with another woman, she threw the children into a river, however remorse quickly filled her heart and she tried to save them. The grief and guilt drove her mad she would be heard moaning and screaming as she mourned the death of the boys. She stopped eating and would only walk along the riverbank searching for them. As the days passed and she didn't eat, driven by remorse of her act she grew thinner until one days she died by the river.

Even though her body had died, her spirit continued its incessant search for the children, and soon the locals named her La Llorona.

Damned as she was for her act, she is believed to drown other children. In some cases she does not spare adults who come close to her.

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When Patricio Lugan was a boy, he and his family saw her on a creek between Mora and Guadalupita, New Mexico. As the family was sitting outside talking, they saw a tall, thin woman walking along the creek. She then seemed to float over the water, started up the hill, and vanished. However, just moments later she reappeared much closer to them and then disappeared again. The family looked for footprints and finding none, had no doubt that the woman they had seen was La Llorona. 

The stories of La Llorona are retold to children in order to make them behave

Another story told of crossing paths with La Llorona involved a man named Epifanio Garcia. One day he got into an argument with his sister and mother, and he stormed out of the house taking his brothers Augustin and Carlos with him. Their ranch was in Ojo de la Vaca, and they rode off to Villa Real de Santa Fe. Epifanio rode his horse alongside the wagon where his brothers sat. In the middle of nowhere they came across a tall, thin woman dressed in black with a black veil across her face. In the blink of an eye she was seated between Augustin and Carlos.

Sensing she was an otherworldly being Epifanio decided to return to his ranch. The woman in a low whisper said she would visit him again if he argued with his mother.

A sprit believed to be La Llorona has been seen in the PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association) Building. Rumors are this place was one the sites of an old Spanish-Indian cemetery close to the Santa Fe River. Employees tell of hearing sounds of a woman crying and being pushed by unseen hands. At night wailing is heard by the river.
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Stories of La Llorona have extended beyond the American Southwest into northern states like Montana. However she is always found near bodies of water pining for her children, or seeking others to take to a watery tomb.

A Story from 1888:

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​It was three o'clock in the morning. The bells of the cathedral and the palace, far away, struck the hour as we traversed a lonely, silent street toward the suburbs of Mexico. We had been keeping vigil with a wounded man, a compatriot of mine and had overstayed our watch, for he was frantic with delirium and we feared to transfer him to the care of the inexperienced and rather careless persons who should succeed us.

We walked on briskly, for it was long hours past the time when coaches and tram cars had ceased plying. We were in San Cosme, and in front of the great, massive structure which the wife of ex-Marshal Bazaine has claimed from the government as an imperial gift to her traitorous husband. The façade of the edifice curves in such fashion as to form an offset or alcove on the street, and before we reached it I fancied I saw a woman's figure stealing along in its denser shadow, and I felt a thrill of compassion for her, as one of the poor children of the night. She was not to be seen when we came near the spot, but a moment later a piercing cry rang out near us—a long-drawn wail of suffering and horror.

I grasped the arm of my comrade. 'Some woman is in distress—we must go to her rescue. We are both armed, thank heaven!'

But he threw his arm about me and forced me forward at a quick pace that was almost a run; and so unexpected was the move that I had been pushed along some roads ere I could offer resistance.

'Come on! Come on!' he whispered hoarsely as I shook myself free from his clasp. 'We must hasten! We must go on quickly!'

'I would not have believed you could desert a fellow creature in trouble!' I cried with indignation, 'and beyond all a woman. It is not like you Frederic.' For I had seen his courage tried by venomous serpents in Tierra Caliente, and in encounters with highwaymen in the Sierras, and I had heard of his coolness and daring in a combat with Apaches in Northern Chihuahua.

'Hush! Hush!' he answered, panting. 'You know not of what you speak. We abandon no mortal woman—the voice you hear is the cry of La Llorona. Look yonder at the sereno!'

We were near one of the points where a watchman stands all night in the middle of the thoroughfare, and following my companion's gesture I saw the officer, fallen upon his knees in the circle of light caused by his lantern; the great capuchin hood of his cape was pulled over his head and every line of his figure betokened abject fear and horror.

There was something uncanny in the sight, for the policemen of Mexico are not impressionable material. And through the silent, empty street those dreadful cries still went ringing wildly, surely sufficient motive for such a display of terror. The sound seemed to float away and down a bystreet toward the equestrial statue of Charles IV, growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

'Let us go,' said my companion; 'yes, I am a materialist and I sneer at spiritualism and ghosts and phantoms; but, nevertheless, I think there is not a man or woman in Mexico who would not tremble at the voice of Luisa La Llorona.

This is Luisa's story:

In the year of our Lord 1584, Luisa Haro was called the most beautiful girl in Mexico and the most modest. Her father had brought her from Spain when she was 10 years old, and dying four years later, had left her utterly without kindred, so far as was known to herself or her neighbors.

She was a clever needle woman and a maker of artificial flowers, and her skill found ready employment for churchly uses, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of such work done in the convents. She had her little home nest in a lonely callejuela or by street, almost like an alley in the shadow of the cloister walls of one of the guilds that chiefly employed her and here she lived forlornly enough, indeed as is the fate of a woman who dwells quite alone; but her days were virtuous and tranquil.

She did not attend the gallants that came stealing at nightfall into that rincon apartado—that out-of-the-way corner and tenanted the midnight darkness of its dusty, narrow passage. Her shutters were closed and barred ere the darkness gathered and none of the delicate, scented fingers that tapped on those clumsy defenses ever sounded the 'Open, Sesame!' to the girl they sheltered.

Luisa was the despair of all the gay, dissolute blades of the vice regal court of New Spain. Her neighbors in the lonely bystreet were wont to point her out with a strange admixture of feelings, uncertain whether to respect and recommend her severe rectitude or to disparage her as one who is denied the natural passions and pleasant frailties of humanity.

But a change came about when the girl was something over 20 years old. It began to be whispered by the gossips of the neighborhood that the shutters of Luisa's window now creaked slightly open, and that her voice was heard at the crevice in the converse with one who came not tentatively and doubting, but with the confident, assured step of a man who knows the welcome that awaits him. And soon it was told about, originated in one of the vague, indefinite ways in which such things do transpire, that this complacent wooer was Nuno Marquis of Montes-Claros. So it was that Luisa assumed a new importance in the eyes of those about her, as will ever happen, under like conditions.

One night—a night when the dashing rain scourged the black walls of the cloister, to the mournful accompaniment of the mourning owls in the belfry—one of the parish goodmen was hastening home belated through the narrow callejuela where dwelt Luisa, when he saw in the space before him something that made him pause and tremble, for he was of the timid bourgeois class that carried no staunch Toledo blade, no slender deadly rapier swung from the belt.

The night was dark, almost palpably. No ray of light fell into the callejuela, save the dim ray from the little lantern, swinging before the rude image of some saint in a niche near the tablet on the wall, at the entrance of the by-street where it opened with blunt angle into a wider thoroughfare. That ray, falling through the weather-stained pane of the lantern was dim and fitful, and almost seemed to make the darkness denser and more concrete than the spaces that the honest wayfarer fancied he saw flitting along the wall.

Now these might be some of the gallants that were always wrangling hereabouts for the sweet sake of Luisa, albeit there had been a notable falling off in their attendance, since it was rumored she had finally hearkened to the voice of one of their number. Or—and the hair of the honest fellow bristled at the idea, for all the darkness—it might even be Don Nuno himself, and his worship, by all accounts would not hesitate to spit like a curlew from the marhses one who he might meet poaching on his preserves. So, fearing to be mistaken for a gallant, the honest citizen shrunk into himself and flattened his portliness against the convent wall as best might be. And the vague shapes passed him by in silence, unperceiving.

He repented of his own timidity the next morning and reviled himself for a fool and a coward, when the neighborhood thrilled to the news of the flight of Luisa Haro. her door stood ajar and the poor belongings of her home stood undisturbed and in order.. All the evidence pointed to the fact that her flight was voluntary and deliberate, and the popular voice was unanimous in declaring that her comrade must be Nuno, Marquis of Montes-Claros. It was this pair, no doubt, who the worthy goodman had seen stealing away through the darkness and his repentance was keen that he had not followed them to possess himself of that knowledge of their movements, and destination that would have made him important among his fellows.

From that day her old time neighbors knew naught of Luisa Haro, save that someone whose affairs had taken him to the suburb of San Cosme brought back the story that he had seen her there, blooming and with sumptuous accessories in the balcony of a splendid mansion that was known to belong to Montes-Claros.

SIX YEARS after the flight of Luisa from her homely abode in the narrow callejuela, she sat in the the luxurious home where Montes-Claros had placed her, brooding mournfully over her situation. The moonlight streamed through the open window and illuminated her despondent figure. In face and form she was more beautiful than on the day she fled with Monte-Claros, but still she was not beautiful enough to keep the fickle fancy of the Spaniard. His attentions and his interest had grandly diminished until the unhappy woman now had but not much reason to consider herself altogether deserted by him, for whom she had give up all that is most dear to woman. She had lacked no material comfort, it is true, thus far, but this was little consolation to a woman whose thwarted affection was as strong and unaltered as when her passionate heart first poured out its ardent incense before her love.

She had not seen Montes-Claros for a fortnight and she was resolved to know the worse without further horror of suspense and anxiety. She rose and carried the infant in her arms to an alcove, behind whose silken curtains lay two other children sleeping. She laid the little one beside its brothers. She shrouded herself in a long dark clinging mantilla, left the house and took her way to the central streets of the city.

She knew the family mansion of Montes-Claros and shortly found herself before it. The windows of the façade were ablaze with light, and the alarmed watcher saw that the rooms were full of a festive throng. Nuno was there in the midst of his guests with his proud, affected mother, and beside them a young girl, tall and handsome, in bridal raiment.

The heart of Luisa sank like lead within her. She plucked by the sleeve a bystander, gazing like herself  through the window. 'Do you know friend, who is the young lady beside the Señor Marquis?'

'Who should it be,' laughed the man she questioned, 'but his novia—the bride he wedded this morning at 10 of the clock in the chapel of the Segrario?'

No word answered Luisa, but neither made she outcry, only presently fell back from the window and pushed her way to the open street through the eager crowd of onlookers.

Slowly, mechanically she held her way never hastening, never pausing till she reached the house in San Cosme and let herself in at its great arched entrance, and into her own chamber. An antique coffer stood there, an ancient cedar chest with Maruesque decoration brought over from Spain by the family of Montes-Claros. In it Nuno had been wont to deposit, while he yet frequented the swelling such odds and ends as fancying he might buy on the way out, thither or matters in his possession at the moment that he found cumbrous.

Still under the spell of the awful, deadly quiet, Luisa opened the old chest and took from it a dagger, a curious jeweled weapon that Nuno had tossed down long since forgotten, though its memory had lived in the fevered brain of the woman.

Still lighted only by the pallid, ghastly moonbeams, she went to the alcove where her little ones lay sleeping and drew aside the curtains.

'You father has forsaken us, my darling ones and your mother would fain preserve you from the miseries that await you. To God I recommend your innocent sprits.'

Then one by one slowly, surely, fatally she thrust the dagger into the bosom of each tender little body.

Only when the blood welled darkly up, staining the white night raiment did the wretched mother seem to realize her dreadful doing. She gazed a moment at the heart rending vision and then ran forth into the street uttering those frightful wails that for 300 years have continued to echo in the streets of Mexico at varying hours and seasons—when the soul in penance can no longer endure its torture, so the devout say.

As the wailing woman ran that night, her cries aroused the city and she was captured and recognized when the dagger she still clutched and her blood-stained raiment told the tragic story and gave a clue to the discovery of her victims. There was no penalty for man's inhumanity to woman in the Mexico of those days, any more than in the present; and the poor distracted instrument of crime paid all the temporal penalty in this case, while the actual murderer in fact rather gained popularity.

During her imprisonment and trial Luisa maintained a helpless, hopeless silence. She failed and faded day by day and when at last arrived the hour of execution she was unable to walk up the steps of the scaffold, and not from fright but from sheer weakness she became senseless in the arms of her bearer. The execution proceeded but the decree of the law was done on a corpse for ere the halter touched her, Luisa Haro was lifeless.

And however justice had miscarried in the hands of human authority the retribution of heaven proved direct and active. For on that very May day when the woman who had trusted him went to the doom of a felon, Nuno, Marquis of Montes-Claros was buried having died ere his honeymoon was over.

And now, centuries after it is told that whenever appears the wailing woman the following morning sees the flowers on the tomb of Montes Claros withered, seared and the earth upon it dank and noisome as if it were drenched and soaked with blood.

THE KANSAS CITY TIMES c.1888