In our next entry we will continue our investigation into the paranormal realm with the legend of La Llorona. Popularized in films such as, “The Curse of La Llorona” while the tale varies according to culture, the general idea is of a ghostly woman called La Llorona associated with water. In some stories she finds her husband cheating with another woman and out of anger drowns their children. Left with guilt she drowns herself. As a result her spirit lingers behind.
While in other stories she murders the illegitimate children of her husband. In venezuela for example, the father dies in war and for no reason other than out of a lapse of sanity she kills her children and is said to seek out and kill children as a ghost. Its commonplace there to put crosses up on doors to protect them from the evil spirit. In various places like mexicoher legend is used to scare children into good behavior so they don’t wonder alone at night. It’s also used in other places to simply keep young children away from bodies of water to protect them from drowning.
The oldest known mention of her any form evidentantly is on the 19th century poem where she is a woman named rosalie who is murdered by her husband. Some have suggested that she may have been a construct from German folklore where a tale much like the one we know is told. It also has similarities to Ancient Greek mythology where Hera the wife of Zeus kills the children he had with the goddess Lamia.
While it’s a entertaining tale and handy to scare children in into good behavior, there’s seems no concrete proof. Every culture has it share of fairy tales, myths and nightmarish stories and the legend of La Llorona the best I can tell, is the nothing more than a legend. Thank you as always for reading, if you like what we write in our files, or if you disagree please feel free to comment we would love to here. Stay tuned for the next entry of the Farmer files…..if you dare to read.