OUT OF STATE | La Llorona: The Weeping Woman of Mexican Folklore

A river at night.
A woman’s cry that chills the blood.
La Llorona — the Weeping Woman — is Mexico’s most famous ghost.

For centuries, she has haunted riversides and canals, searching for the children she drowned and lost. Some call her a grieving mother. Others, a curse born from betrayal. But all agree: her cry is an omen. If you hear it, death may follow.

In this episode of Out of State, we travel beyond American folklore into the haunted history of Mexico. From Aztec goddesses to colonial sightings in Mexico City, to modern encounters along the Rio Grande, La Llorona endures as one of the most terrifying paranormal stories in the world.

Join us as we uncover why her legend refuses to rest… and why her voice still drifts across the water.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This episode includes references to child death and
grief.
Listener discretion is advised.
The river is quiet, only thesound of water moving over stone
, and then a cry, high, piercinga woman's voice, splitting the
dark.
High piercing a woman's voice,splitting the dark.

(00:24):
Her figure drifts along thebank, white dress trailing in
the mud, hair, black tangled,hiding her face.
Her arms reach for somethingthat isn't there and her cry
shatters the stillness.
I'm Isihios, my children, butif you hear her voice, she isn't

(00:49):
mourning you, she's alreadyhunting.
This is La Llorona, the weepingwoman of Mexico, a ghost whose

(01:17):
cry is the sound of death itself.
I'm Robert Barber, and this isOut of State.
A companion series to State ofthe Unknown.
Short journeys into legendsbeyond America's borders is out
of state.
A companion series to State ofthe Unknown.
Short journeys into legendsbeyond America's borders,
stories of folklore, hauntingsand shadows from the other side
of the map.
Let's step into the dark.

(01:44):
La Llorona is called Mexico'smost famous ghost, but her cries
were heard long before she wasgiven that name.
In the mid-1500s, spanishfriars in Mexico City wrote of
hearing a woman weeping in thenight.
Her voice echoed through thestreets, piercing, unrelenting,

(02:09):
always crying for her children,and many swore her lament came
before disaster, before plague,before war.
But even then the Spaniardsrealized this was not a new
ghost.
It was older, much older.

(02:31):
In Aztec traditions there wasSiwa Coatl.
Her name means snake woman agoddess of motherhood and
childbirth, said to appear atnight wandering roads weeping
for her lost children.
Her cries were omensforetelling catastrophe.
Chroniclers wrote that she washeard before to the Spanish.

(02:53):
Others point to Chalchi Utlikwe, the goddess of rivers and
lakes.
She was a protector of waters,but she was also feared for
floods and sacrifice.
When the Spanish came, theseindigenous figures collided with
Catholic warnings about sin,betrayal and damnation.

(03:16):
The result was no longer agoddess, no longer a saint.
It became something else, aghost, no longer a saint.
It became something else aghost.
The woman in white who weeps bythe water, the mother who will
never rest.
The story changes its clothes,but never its bones.

(03:37):
A beautiful woman, a faithlesslover, a betrayal that curdles
into something worse.
In rage or in a moment beyondreason, she leads her children
to the river and pushes themunder.
The current closes.
The night says nothing, andwhen her mind clears it's too

(04:01):
late.
She follows them into the dark,but death refuses her.
So La Llorona is sent back tothe banks, condemned to walk the
edges of water and searchforever.

(04:22):
White dress, dripping hair likea curtain face you're not meant
to see.
Her voice is the trap, theriddle If it sounds close, she's
far.
If it sounds far, she's alreadywithin arm's reach.
People say she chooses theplaces where the shore crumbles,
the soft banks children like toplay on by day, by night.

(04:44):
She waits where the reedsthicken.
And to play on by day, by night.
She waits where the reedsthicken and the mud takes her
weight.
She calls not with words butwith absence, drawing you toward
the one sound in a sleepingtown.
They say she takes the livingfor two reasons to replace what

(05:04):
she lost or to make the worldfeel what she feels.
And when the water calms,there's no sign she was ever
there.
Only the mark of feet along thebank, only a name.
No one speaks aloud.
The cry of La Llorona is whatmakes her feared.

(05:27):
It's not just weeping, it'ssound twisted until it doesn't
belong in a human throat.
Children are told the cry canfollow them home, that once you
hear it you'll never forget it.
The danger is in its trick.
A cry that sounds faint may beclose.

(05:47):
A cry that sounds faint may beclose.
A cry that sounds near may befar.
It's never what it seems.
Those who hear it describe ahollow echo, as if it comes from
the ground, the water, thewalls, a sound you feel in your
chest before your ears catch it.
Some say if her cries heardoutside your house, someone

(06:17):
inside will die within days.
Others claim that those whofollow her weeping to the river
sometimes never return at all.
The first written accounts comefrom colonial Mexico City.
Soldiers reported hearing awoman's wails drifting through
the empty streets at night.
Always before catastrophe, hercries became an omen of plague

(06:38):
or war or conquest.
One tale describes a patrol whoswore they saw her at the
aqueducts, a pale figure bentover the water.
They approached, but beforethey could speak she vanished
and that week sickness sweptthrough the city.
In Oaxaca, families warnedchildren not to play near the

(07:03):
Rio Atoyac after dark, not onlybecause of drowning but because
La Llorona might mistake themfor her own.
In Xochimilco, the famousfloating gardens, boatmen still
whisper of her.
On foggy nights they claim tohear a woman calling from the
reeds, sometimes close,sometimes impossibly far.

(07:28):
In Puebla, there are stories offamilies waking to her cries
just outside their windows.
On three nights in a row shewas heard.
On the fourth, someone in thehousehold was gone.
Travelers on lonely highwaystell of a woman in white
flagging them down, but whenthey stop the road is empty.

(07:51):
In border towns along the RioGrande, migrants whisper that
she follows those who cross theriver, a woman's cry rising
above the current.
One man swore he saw herstanding in the water, but when
he called out, the figuredissolved into spray.
And in more than one villagechildren have vanished by rivers

(08:15):
.
At night.
The only trace a smallhandprint in the mud at the bank
.
La Llorona is not bound to oneplace.
She has crossed rivers, borders, even oceans.
In Guatemala, travelers whisperof her beneath bridges.
Horses refuse to cross when hercry drifts through the arches.

(08:38):
One story tells of a merchantwho ignored the sound and by
morning his cart was foundoverturned, the animals missing,
his body nowhere in sight.
In Venezuela, farmers claimlivestock die after hearing her
voice.
Carry across the valleys, theherds panic, the air stills and

(09:02):
by dawn the fields are empty,but for hoofprints leading
nowhere.
Empty, but for hoofprintsleading nowhere.
In Chile, mothers warn childrenduring storms that La Llorona
moves in floods stealing soulsas easily as the waters sweep
away homes.
One tale says her veil was seendrifting in the current after

(09:25):
an entire family was lost to theriver.
The details shift, the nameschange, but the image never
fades.
No-transcript.
La Llorona is not only a warning.
She is not just a tale to keepchildren away from rivers.

(09:47):
She is a way to explain suddentragedy drownings,
disappearances, death withoutreason.
She embodies betrayal and grief, but twisted into something
more, because she does not onlysuffer, she makes others suffer
with her.

(10:07):
Her loss became hunger, hermourning became predation.
That is why her legend endures,because she is not tragedy
alone.
She is tragedy turned outward,she has tragedy turned outward.
La Llorona has not faded intothe past.

(10:27):
She is still alive in Mexico'simagination and beyond.
Her story is told during Dia deMuertos, or Day of the Dead.
Her voice is sung in thehaunting folk ballad simply
called La Llorona, a songrecorded by icons like Chevella
Vargas and Leela Downs.

(10:47):
Its mournful melody is sung inplazas a love song on the
surface, but always carrying theecho of a woman who lost
everything.
She appears in theater puppetshows, even children's rhymes
that are anything but comforting, and she's become part of
cinema, from Mexican horrorclassics to Hollywood's the

(11:11):
Curse of La Llorona in 2019.
She slips into TV as well,appearing in series like
Supernatural and Grimm and infilms that borrow her shape like
Mama.
Her face is painted in murals,her name whispered in podcasts
like this one and retold onlineOn forums and message boards.

(11:33):
People still share stories ofhearing her cry near rivers,
swearing.
The legend is not only old, itis happening still.
But in Mexico she is never justa character, she is a presence.
In Xochimilco, boatmen telltourists of hearing her cry over
the canals.
In Puebla, families still swear.

(11:56):
She passes by before deathvisits the household, and in
rural towns, people still leaveofferings, candles, flowers,
toys, all so her search may turnaway.
Water is her prison, her stage,her weapon.
Rivers and canals arethresholds, the place between

(12:20):
life and death, safety anddanger.
La Llorona lingers therebecause grief itself is a
threshold, never resolved, neverreleased.
Her cry is both mourning andhunting.
It is sorrow given fangs.
It spreads fear because itspreads grief, and perhaps that

(12:45):
is why she endures while otherghosts fade into stories.
No one tells, because loss doesnot end, it only changes shape,
and La Llorona is that shape.
La Llorona is not only rage,not only vengeance.
She is grief that became hunger, loss that became endless.

(13:09):
Her cry is not mourning, it ishunting, and in her voice is the
promise that grief spreads.
It does not stay still, itseeks, and once it finds you, it
will not let go.
This has been Out of State.

(13:31):
A companion series from Stateof the Unknown.
Short journeys into legendsbeyond America's borders.
If you've been enjoying theshow, follow, rate and share it
with someone who can't resist astory that lingers.
And until next time, remembernot every cry in the night

(13:51):
belongs to the living.