Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 12:29:17 -0700 (PDT)
To: stories@ghosts.org
yourname Kathryn O'Neil
email koneil@panam.edu
Since I live very near the border between Texas and Mexico, I have learned many of the local legends from both sides of the border. One of the most popular is the story of La Llorona (pronounced La-yeh-roh-na). According to legend, La Llorona was a local woman who had many many children, but no husband. (This is typical of the area) She had a lover, but he did not want her because of her children. He did not like children. In order to please this man, La Llorona drowned all of her children in one of the drainage canals in the area. I have never heard what happened to this unhappy woman in the end, but they say that if a child is walking alone at night near a canal or other source of water, that she will take him away and drown him. Supposedly, several young children have dissappeared in this manner. While I am not really a believer in ghosts, this story told by a friend of my younger sister gives me chills. She is a very Christian girl (as am I) and had no reason to make this up.
Her name is Julia, and this is her story. Julia is 18 or 19 now, but when she was younger (maybe 7 or 8) she and a friend had been playing together at the house of another friend. Well, they had played for a while, and when it was time for them to go home, they walked together since it was evening, and Julia was not allowed to walk home alone at night. Well, the girls got to the place where they had to separate. Julia begged her friend to walk all the way home with her, and have her mom drive the girl to her house. Unfortunately, the girl refused, and Julia was left alone to walk the remaining block or two in the dark. She went very fast, hoping to get home before the sun set completely and she got into trouble, but it was too late. As the last rays died on the horizon, Julia was right next to a canal. From the canal, she heard a high pitched, unearthly voice shreiking HER NAME. Terrified by a voice calling her that did not sound human, Julia took off running as fast as she could. She told me that she could hear something running behind her, and something heavy hit her on the back. She almost fell down, but managed to keep her feet, and got home safely.
Julia never said that she thought it was La Llorona, in fact, she never drew any conclusions about the experience except that it was terrifying. This could be explained as the overactive imagination of a little girl alone in the dark, but maybe it was not. Maybe something did come out of that canal that night. Anything is possible, but I would not want to walk past a canal late at night alone...
This page (http://www.ghosts.org/faq/llorona2.html) last updated April 13, 2005.