The first publication that came out about La Llorona was in 1883 when Manuel Carpio wrote about her tale in the form of a sonnet.

Name

La Llorona is Spanish for “the Weeping Woman,” which she is also commonly referred to–along with this, she is also called the Wailing Woman, the Cryer, as well as La Malinche.

She bears a likeness to the White Lady, although she is not directly associated with that legend.

Physical Description

In her oldest origins, she has been linked to a pre-Conquest Aztec goddess–Ciuacoatl, or snake-woman, who appeared in white, but other versions describe her as, “the ugliest and dirtiest that one could possibly imagine. Her face was so black and covered with filth that she looked like something straight out of Hell.”

The modern version of La Llorona is that she is the spirit of a Mexican woman who appears to be wearing a white dress.

Origin

Folklore about La Llorona is common knowledge in Mexico, where the claim is that she wanders the banks of rivers crying for her lost children.

Weeping women wearing white is an international phenomenon–the details of the lives of these weeping women, or White Ladies are unique for every different culture or individual haunting, it is safe to say that they are related.

Mythology and Lore

The poem that was written by Manuel Carpio was the first written account of this wailing spirit.

The oral legend usually tells of a young woman named Maria, living in a rural Mexican village. She marries into a wealthy family after she’s swept off her feet by a nobleman; after a few years of marriage, Maria and her husband have two children, but her husband was rarely home preferring to travel on his own. When he did come home, he ignored his wife, only spending time with their two boys and eventually, Maria realized that her husband no longer loved her.

After living in a neglectful and lonely marriage for so long, Maria was horrified when her husband returned with a new, younger bride to tell Maria that he was leaving her for good. In the depths of her despair, she took their sons down to the river and drowned them. When horror finally found her in remorse, she tried in vain to recover their bodies so she took her own life. Her body was found several days later on the riverbank, but the bodies of her sons were never recovered.

To this day, she wanders the world of the living, haunting rivers and lakes, doomed to search for her dead children forever. Be wary, if you hear her near to you, she is far away, attempting to lure you in, but the closer you get to La Llorona, the farther away she will sound. If you hear her crying out, “ay, mis hijos!” it’s best to just run in the opposite direction–to this day, when a child goes missing by a river in Mexico, you can be sure that the name La Llorona will be uttered.

Modern Pop-Culture References

Books & Literature

• There Was a Woman: La Llorona from Folklore to Popular Culture (2008)

Movies

• La Llorona (1960)
• The Curse of the Crying Woman/La Maldicion de La Llorona (1963)
• The Wailer (2006)
• J-ok’el (2007)
• The Cry (2007)
• Her Cry: La Llorona Investigation (2013)
• Mama (2013)
• The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
• La Llorona (2019)

Television Series

• Grimm (2011 – 2017)

Is there anything we missed about La Llorona? Let us know in the comments section below!

Macabre Mary

Georgia-based author and artist, Mary has been a horror aficionado since the mid-2000s. Originally a hobby artist and writer, she found her niche in the horror industry in late 2019 and hasn’t looked back since. Mary’s evolution into a horror expert allowed her to express herself truly for the first time in her life. Now, she prides herself on indulging in the stuff of nightmares.

Mary also moonlights as a content creator across multiple social media platforms—breaking down horror tropes on YouTube, as well as playing horror games and broadcasting live digital art sessions on Twitch.

www.macabremary.com

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