Tuesday, October 2, 2007

   THE LLORONA, OMEN OF DEATH
They say that the Llorona was once a poor young girl who loved a rich nobleman, and together they had three children. The girl wished to marry the nobleman, but he refused her. He told her that he might have considered marrying her if she had not born the three out-of-wedlock children, which he considered a disgrace. The girl was determined to have the nobleman for her own, so she drowned her children to prove her love to him. But still he would have none of her and married another. Mad with grief, the girl walked along the river, weeping and calling for her children. But they were gone. So she drowned herself. For her crime, her spirit was condemned to wander the waterways, weeping and searching for her children until the end of time. It was said that whenever the wailing woman appears, someone will die.


Now I have heard that one night, two young men were out driving in their car one summer night with the windows down when they heard a terrible wail. It sounded like the desperate cry of a baby or perhaps an injured tom-cat. Beside the road, a white mist began to gather. It moved in front of a grove of palm trees and became the figure of a lovely young girl dressed all in white. Long dark hair hung loose down her back. She began to weep and wring her hands in agony, and the men realized that they were seeing the ghost of the Llorona. The driver gunned the engine and they drove away as fast as they could. The glowing figure of the Llorona remained visible in the rear-view mirror until the car turned the corner.
The men were upset by the vision, afraid that the rumors about her might be true. But nothing happened to them the rest of that night. After a few drinks to calm themselves, they were able to laugh away the incident. And in the golden light of the next morning, the young men decided they had imagined the whole thing.
The night after the ghost sighting, the two men were riding home passed the place where they had seen the Llorona when their car spun out of control. The automobile hit a tree in the palm grove where the Llorona had appeared the previous night, and both men were killed instantly.

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