The legends They are folk tales of oral tradition and an anonymous author that relate natural and supernatural events that take place in real times and places. For instance: The chupacabra, La llorona, The alley of the kiss and The ghost of the nun.
Are stories They usually have as protagonists “ordinary” people, who are traversed by the presence of some mystical phenomenon.
Examples of Mexican legends
- The ghost of the nun
Located in the 16th century, in Mexico City, this legend tells the story of María de Ávila. Coming from a wealthy family and the high aristocracy, she fell in love with a mestizo, Arrutia, who aspired to marry her out of interest. The young woman’s brothers, Alfonso and Daniel, took note of what was happening and opposed the wedding taking place.
Despite the fact that the brothers had forbidden it, Arrutia kept trying to see his beloved. The brothers decided to offer him a large sum of money as long as he disappeared, and he accepted.
The mestizo’s flight plunged Maria into a tremendous depression. After two years of not being able to emerge afloat, her brothers decided to take her to the Old Convent of the Conception, and cloister her there. Maria’s days were monotonous: she prayed and asked for her beloved every minute.
The pain and depression were such that the woman decided to kill herself. He did so by hanging himself on a peach tree in the courtyard of the convent. Right there his body was buried. A month later, each night, the ghost of the woman began to appear. The nuns and novices saw their faces reflected in the waters of the place, every time the sun went down, and for that reason they were forbidden to go out to the patio as soon as it began to get dark.
According to legend, the ghost of María, desperate for the absence of the mulatto, searched for him in every corner of the Earth until he found him and took him to the afterlife.
- The alley of the kiss
This legend tells the story of a forbidden love between Ana and Carlos, who were secretly on one of the balconies that overlooked a narrow 68-centimeter-wide alley.
There, the couple demonstrated their love, until one day, the girl’s father discovered them. Engulfed in anger, the man murdered his daughter, stabbing her in the back with a dagger. The lover, seeing that his beloved was dying, kissed her warm hand. From this fact, the alley began “the alley of the kiss.”
This popular legend established a tradition in that place in Guanajuato: the couples who visit it, kiss on the third step, which, they say, guarantees seven years of happiness.
- Island of dolls
On an island located in the Valley of Mexico, Don Julián Santana acquired the strange habit of collecting abandoned dolls for a single purpose: to scare away fear. He acquired this rare habit after learning that a girl who used to scare him drowned near his home.
As a peace offering, in the place where the girl had died, Don Julián left the dolls that he collected and those that neighbors began to give him, so that the ghost of the girl could entertain themselves with them.
Over the years and until his death, Julián accumulated hundreds of thousands of dolls. And those who frequent the place say that, from the beyond, to take care of them.
- The weeping woman
It is one of the many stories of forbidden love, this time between a man of Spanish origin and an indigenous woman. As a result of their love, three children were born, whom she treated and raised with devotion. The problem was that the lady wanted to formalize the bond with her lover, and he refused.
One fine day, the man married a Spanish damsel and the news drove his lover crazy. The loss of reason was such that one day, he took his three children to Lake Texcoco and drowned them before taking his own life.
Those who visit this place claim to have heard the wailing of a young woman, dressed in white, who wanders aimlessly until she is lost in the waters.
- The mulatto
It is the story of a mysterious woman, who lived in Córdova, whose history no one knew and who, to top it all, was practically a hermit. The motives? They say that she was so beautiful that when she went out to the street, she became the center of attention of the whole town. In addition, it was said that he did healings with herbs; it conjured storms and predicted natural events.
All these rumors about the beautiful mulatto led to harsh accusations against her: they accused her of being a witch. The obsession that her person aroused among the neighbors was such that, even the mayor of the city, Martín de Ocaña, confessed his love, which she rejected even after he offered her the pearls of the virgin.
This rejection led the mayor to accuse her of having wanted to poison him with a strange concoction. For this accusation, the mulatto woman was tried and sentenced to die at a stake, in front of the entire town, with a fire made with green wood.
While waiting in a dungeon for the day of her death, the young woman managed to convince one of the guards to give her chalk. With it, he covered all the walls of his cell with drawings. On one of the walls, you could see a huge ship, with its sails unfurled, rocking on the waves.
The work ready, which left anyone who saw it perplexed, the mulatto asked the following question to her jailer, while she contemplated the drawings: “What does this ship need?”
After thinking about it, the man replied: “Let him walk.”
With a slight smile, the mulatto said: “Look how he’s doing.”
That said, the woman took a small jump and got on the boat that began to lose itself on the horizon while the woman greeted the jailer, who could not get out of his astonishment.