The Legend of La Llorona Essay -- Urban Legends

A Guatemalan native, a male graduate student that I work with in my research group at the University told this story. He came from the countryside, living in a small village back home. According to him, the story of La Llorona, involving a weeping woman, arose sometime in the 1700s and became well known both at school and home. Some claimed to have actually seen the weeping woman. Some disregard it as unscientific and implausible. No one is sure of the exact origin of this urban legend. This story was told to me and another graduate student in our research group while sitting in lab waiting for the experiment results. The story began as we started sharing our own background and the culture of our own countries when the storyteller decided to make a little shift and started to tell a story told to him by his older cousin--the story of La Llorona: It all began with a young hidalgo (a member of the minor nobility in Spain) falling in love with a beautiful but lowly girl, Marà ­a. Some years ago, the young hidalgo fell in love with Marà ­a. Marà ­a had a casita--a little house--where the young hidalgo would visit and bring his friends. In almost every way, they shared a happy life together. Eventually, Marà ­a bore him two or three children. Everything was well except that their marriage was not blessed by the church, as his parents knew nothing about the arrangement. When his parents found out about Marà ­a, they would not allow him to marry her and would not accept her as his wife nor her children as their grandchildren. They went on and urged him to marry a more suitable lady to give them grandchildren; this "suitable lady" was also a member of the minor nobility in Spain, also very beautiful. At some point in time, he ga... ... walk outside late at night, you might just hear her crying! Works Cited Figueredo, Maria L. "The Legend of La Llorona: Excavating and (Re) Interpreting the Archetype of the Creative/Fertile Feminine Force", Latin American Narratives and Cultural Identity, 2004 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York. pp232-243. "History-Guatemala." Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2005. http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/Guatemal_History.asp. "La Llorona Commercial Takes Hispanic Creative Honors." Hispania News-The Hispanic Community's Newspaper. 2002. October 9th. http://www.hispanianews.com/archive/2002/10/09/14.htm. Villanueva, Alma Luz. "La Llorona/Weeping Woman," Weeping Woman, 1994. Tempe, Arizona . pp 1-7. West, John O. "The Weeping Woman: La Llorona", Legendary Ladies of Texas, 1994 Texas Folklore Society. Nacogdoches, Texas. pp 31-36.