From “By Path and Trail” Harris
Tell me, Ignacio,'' I said to him in a solemn tone, late in the evening when we were coming out of an ugly ravine, "tell me of this La Llorona who
haunts the mountain paths and the lonely roads leading to the towns.,, is she worse than the Vaca de Lumbre, the gleaming cow, that at midnight
suddenly appears on the Plaza del Iglesia and after a moment's pause bounds forward, and with streams of fire and flame flowing from her eyes and
nostrils, rushes like a blazing whirlwind through the village.''
"Ah, senor, she is worse, indeed she is worse than the fiery cow, for it is known to everybody that while the vaca is terrible to look at, and on a
dark night it is awful, she never does harm to any one. The little children, too, are all in bed and asleep, when the Vaca de Lumbre appears, and it
is only us grown people that see her and that not often. But the weeping woman indeed is harmful ; it is well, senor, that we all know her when she ap
pears, and we are so afraid of her that no one will say yes or no to her when she speaks, and it is well. Many queer things and many evil spirits, it
is known to us all, are around at night and they are angry, when on dark nights there is thunder and rain and lightning, but the Wailing Woman is the
worst of all of them. Sometimes, sir, she is out of her head and is running, her hair streaming after her and she is tossing her hands above her head
and shrieking the names of her lost children Eita and Anita. But when you meet her some other time she looks like an honest woman, only different, for
her dress is white and the reboso with which she covers her head is white, too. Indeed, anybody might speak back to her then and offer to help her to
find her children, but whoever does speak to her drops dead. Yes, indeed, sir, only one man, Diego Boula, who years afterward died in His bed, was the
only one who ever answered her and lived. Diego, you must know, was a loco, a fool, and he met her one night when he was crossing the Plaza la San
Pablo. She asked him what he did with Eita and Anita. And he looked stupid at her and said he wanted something to eat, for he was always hungry, this
Diego. Then sne took a good look at him and then threw back her white reboso and Diego saw a wormy, grinning skull, and blue little balls of fire for
eyes. Then she brought her skull near to his face and opened her fleshless jaws and blew into Diego's face a breath so icy cold that he dropped down
like a dead man. But, senor, a fool's luck saved him and when he was found in the morning, he was recovering. It is said that this ice cold breath of
hers, freezes into death who ever feels it. Then after the person falls dead, she rushes onward again, shrieking for her lost ones, but the one who
speaks to her is found the next morning dead, and on his face and in his wide open eyes there is a look of awful horror.
Did I ever meet her? God forbid, but I heard her shrieks and wailings and the patter of her feet, as she ran, on the cobblestones of the Calle de San
Esteban."
My motto:
Never let a Dragon pass by without pulling its tail!
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