La Llorona

'La Llorona' is Spanish for "The Crying woman," and is a popular legend in Spanish-speaking cultures in the Americas, with many versions.The basic version is that La Llorona was a beautiful woman who killed her children to be with the man that she loved and was subsequently rejected by him. He might have been the children's father, and left their mother for another woman, or he might have been a man she loved, but who was uninterested in a relationship with a woman with children, and whom she thought she could win if the children were out of the way. She drowned the children then killed herself, and is doomed to wander, searching for her children for all eternity, always weeping. Reason for the name, La Lorona. In some cases, according to the tale, she will kidnap wandering children or children who did not behave.

Function of the story in society

Typically, the legend serves as a cautionary tale on several levels. Parents will warn their children that bad behavior will cause her to steal them and being outside after dark will result in a visit from the spirit. The tale also warns teenage girls not to be enticed by status, wealth, material goods, or by men making declarations of love or any promises too good to be true. It also cautions them not to express their sexual desires. Some also believe that those who hear the screams of La Llorona are marked for death, similar to the Gaelic bean sidhe legend. Additionally, the tale is a Mexican and Central American cultural symbol that models negative and despised femininity, where La Llorona is the archetypal evil woman condemned to eternally suffer and weep for violating her role as a wife and a mother. She is a failed woman because she has failed at motherhood. The tale serves to shape Mexican and Chicana women's conduct by prescribing an idealized version of motherhood.