La Llorona

La Llorona, "the Weeping Woman," is one of the most widespread legends of Latin America, told for centuries across Mexico and beyond. In the best-known version a beautiful woman named María drowns her own children in a river to be with a man who then rejects her; consumed by grief and guilt, she dies and is condemned to wander waterways for eternity, weeping and crying out for her lost children. Parents have long used the tale to keep children away from rivers and canals after dark, warning that La Llorona will mistake a wandering child for her own and carry it off. The legend blends pre-Hispanic and colonial elements, and some scholars link it to Aztec accounts of a wailing goddess said to foretell the fall of Tenochtitlan. Her mournful cry — "¡Ay, mis hijos!" — remains a fixture of ghost stories told at night, and reported encounters near rivers, lakes and the canals of Xochimilco keep the figure alive in modern folklore as both a warning and a symbol of inconsolable loss.