La Llorona

The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named María marries a rich ranchero / conquistador[13] to whom she bears two children. One day, María sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns their children in a river, which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt,[14] she drowns herself as well but is unable to enter the afterlife, forced to be in purgatory and roam this earth until she finds her children.[15] In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father cannot take them away to be raised by his new wife.[16] Recurring themes in variations on the La Llorona myth include a white, wet dress, nocturnal wailing, and an association with water.[17]