FOLKLORE-L Archives

From: "Kath" <>
Subject: [FOLKLORE FAMILY] La Yarona (the cryer)
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 01:46:42 -0800

La Yarona (the cryer)

There is an old mexican folktale around
where I live that has some similarities to
the Donkey Lady, and in some senses your
story might be a variation of the Yarona. In
the story no specific towns are named but,
it was supposed to happen in the Castroville
and Hondo area.

Well as the story goes a young woman marries
a man she does not love. He loves her and he
is rich so she decides she will marry him to
make her family happy.

As the years went on she gave birth to 2
sons that this man loved dearly. As so it
happened the woman met a man in a nearby
town. She fell in love with him and began an
affair.

Well her husband found out and threatened to
leave her with the two boys. In a fit of
anger she slipped out one night with the
children she went to her lover with the
children.

As the months went by the lover who was
seeing another woman as well became annoyed
and fearful the children would find out
about his other lovers. So he finally told
her to get rid of them. Send them to their
father or grandparents. He was fed up with
their fighting and breaking things in his
house.

She returns home to find that her parents
are dead. Her husband remained at their side
until their deaths for he still had a
respect and love for them. After they died
he began to search for his children. He was
said to have set off looking for them and
never finding them he settled down in
another town in Texas, another version has
him moving to Mexico.

Another version has him leaving never to
return because of the pain he went through
in the town.

His wife is confused to find her world so
changed. She had no sisters or brothers to
leave her children with. She loves her
children and her lover yet she can't choose
between them.

As it so happened she stopped to have a
picnic with the children near a river. This
is the only specific location, what would
later become the Regional Park and the
Medina River. Well as she went over in her
mind what she could do something snapped.
She smiled and calmly plucked up one boy,
the youngest. This boy was said to be 3 or
4. She walked to the edge of a cliff and
gently tossed him into the river. This boy
didn't know how to swim and drowned quickly.
As her other son rushed over to try to save
his brother she promptly grabbed him under
his arms and plopped him into the river as
well.

It was said she was truly insane at that
moment. She rushed to her lover and told him
that the children where with their
grandparents. A week after the drowning her
lover was bored with her and dissappeared.
It was at this point that she realized what
she did to her children. Screaming she ran
out into the night howling. It was said that
people saw her after that as a woman who was
wearing all white, crying as she wandering
along the river. If approached she would run
away screaming "I did it for him! They were
my children!"

Several reports were made of this woman and
the police began a search for her. The
bodies of the children were never found. Two
years passed, and she somehow made an
amazing journey around Texas' rivers and
streams, looking for her murdered children.
She found herself at the same spot where
they had their little picnic. She could see
the children playing about in the sun. She
remembered them having so much fun that day.
In all her grief she calmly leapt off the
same cliff she tossed her children from. 2
years to the day she killed them.
It was said that a week later, to the day
that the lover abanndoned her, her body was
recovered.

People thought that this was the end to this
tale of great sorrow. But, to this day
people still claim to see a woman dressed in
all white dress that is outdated. She cries
out to the streams looking for her children.
It is said she is cursed to walk the rivers
until the bodies are given a proper burial.
There are various endings to this tale, one
begining she came back as a woman dressed in
black a symbol of her guilt for her crime.
She is in red to symbolize her adultress
ways and as the blood of her children soaked
into her dress. It was also said that she
was very pretty and as a punishment for her
sins she was given the face of a white horse
with sunken in features.

My grandfather is one of those people who
have seen her. He was walking home one night
with his brother. They were tired from a
hard day of work in the fields of the local
farmers and could not think of anything else
but, getting home to sleep. They were headed
to the house that my grandfather and
grandmother to this day still live in. This
house is but, a few blocks from the river.
As they walked across a field in front of
the house they realized a woman walked just
ahead of them. She was wearing all white.
She began to cry. They both ran up behind
her asking her what was wrong. She was
headed towards the river.

Again and again they asked her but, she only
answered them back with her cries. As they
got closer to her my great uncle began to
realize something. He yelled to my
grandfather to look at her feet. As he did
so he saw she was floating two feet off the
ground. Both ran away to the house locking
it tight and my grandmother was confused
about it all until he told her what they
saw. She whispered to them Yarona?
I believe him to this day, because I've seen
ghosts myself.

This thread:

• [FOLKLORE FAMILY] La Yarona (the cryer) by "Kath" <>