Case file · Folklore / legend
La Llorona
The Weeping Woman of Hispanic American folklore, a ghost who wanders near water crying for the children she drowned; hearing her brings misfortune.
1550 CE · 19.32, -99.15 · status: legend
The account
Around 1550 Friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded a crying spirit, Chocacíhuatl, and linked it to an Aztec goddess. The legend is told across Mexico, Central America, the US Southwest and northern South America.
The sceptical view
Ben Radford found similar elements in a German folktale from 1486, suggesting a mix of European and Indigenous sources.
Connections in the atlas
- The Uniondale hitchhiker
- La Llorona
- La Siguanaba and El Cipitío, El Salvador
- La Tulivieja, Panama
- La Sayona
- Sixth omen: the woman weeping in the night
- La Llorona on the Santa Fe River
- Island of the Dolls
- El Silbón
- The Banshee
- Kuntilanak / Pontianak
- Our Lady of Guadalupe