#Curse of the lechuza full

The story has minor variations, but the one described in the podcast is pretty basic and it does the trick. It is said that to this day, Maria still roams the arroyos and riverbeds, as an old hag, looking for her children and crying out for them, and will snatch you up if you are alone or careless. They were swept away by the current never to be seen again. She tried to reach out to save them, but it was too late. When she threw them in the rushing water, they cried out to her as they were drowning and she had second thoughts. In a fit of jealousy, María took her two kids down to the river to drown them. Once while he was away Maria heard a story that her husband was going to leave her for a younger woman from a better family. Her husband was handsome and wealthy and was away from home a lot. She was married off to an older nobleman when she was just a teenager. There was a beautiful young girl named María who caught the attention of many men from all over the territory. The story is usually set in Spanish times. The story always begins in a small village a long time ago and usually far away. Flash floods are common in that part of the world, so the arroyos were vital for flood control for the city.

#Curse of the lechuza full

Some were paved, especially when you got deeper into the city, but as you got closer to the mountains, the Sandias, most arroyos in the 1970s and 1980s were just dirt embankments that became full when it rained. Kids played in the mesas, which were just patches of desert in between housing developments, and in the arroyos, which the locals (gringos) pronounced “arroyas.” The arroyas were mostly waterless ditches running through the city. He lived in a primarily gringo area of Albuquerque, the far Northeast Heights, in a time when kids played mostly outside with other children. Podcast host Robert Bitto first heard the story of La Llorona as a child growing up in New Mexico. So, what is the phenomenon called La Llorona? If you are a child growing up in any of these areas the story of La Llorona is more terrifying than any other ghost story and this story is older than anyone can remember. She haunts the canals, creek beds, rivers, arroyos and acequias of Mexico and the American Southwest. Or I didn't hear them.La Llorona is one of the most powerful and enduring pieces of Mexican folklore. I am all for urban legends, but this one, in particular, was intriguing because years before I had seen an all-white owl at my grandma's house at night. Something about taking their soul or being an omen. He went on about the baby-faced owl that whistles or cries like a baby to lure people out of their home. Years later, I come to find the reason why. He claimed his immediately family was haunted. He was good at it and reputation for it was known. I figured his uncle on his mom's side was doing what he always did, tried to scare us. His uncle told him about the Lechuza earlier in the week. That night we picked up where we left off the night before. The conversation always leads down this familiar path.

We wouldn't either have we not seen and heard the calls of the lechuza.Īs two thirteen-old teens are to do, we talked about everything unknown that night. A couple of moments passed, and the whistling stopped. The sudden burst within the bulb is what broke the trance. Moonlight only made the creature appear more sinister. It had to have been a minute or two stuck in a trance staring into those black eyes until the back-porch lightbulb burned out. It was just a story or, at least it was only a story until we heard and saw the lechuza. Perched on the back fence, it continued to whistle at us. It stood around three feet with completely blacked-out piercing eyes. My cousin's room was in the back of the house and his large bedroom window faced the backyard. when we heard the whistles coming from the backyard.