La Llorona - The Weeping Woman - Extra Mythology

the following episode of extramythology deals with topics that may be triggering including murder and suicide please take care of yourself and viewer discretion is advised myths are not stories that are untrue rather they are tales that don't fit neatly into the historical record which serve as a foundation to a culture her cries ring out over empty lakes an eternal sobbing for an unending loss she seems to be everywhere waiting watching and wailing a young boy camps with his family in new mexico and after dinner he wanders down to a river to play but after a while he's suddenly interrupted by a strange sound what is that a low moon like someone crying no he must be imagining things but as the sun sets the sound intensifies building to a constant whale through the rocks his curiosity gets the better of him and he sneaks toward the sound's origin just as the sun disappears beyond the mountains that's when he sees her a ghostly woman dressed in all white floating above the river with her feet barely touching the surface and she won't stop wailing he stares transfixed in terror and in a flash the woman is upon him and she plunges his head under the surface of the water she is maria the weeping woman the woman in white lyrona and she's looking for her sons [Music] long ago there was a beautiful and vibrant young woman named maria who lived in a poor rural village in mexico one day a wealthy man was riding past her home and catching a glimpse of the beautiful maria he stopped dead in his tracks after a brief introduction they spent the entire night and next day talking and laughing and they fell in love in that change your entire life plan for someone you just met yesterday kind of way so the rich man moved all of his lavish things to maria's small village to make her his wife deciding that he didn't care that he could never take the poor lowly maria back to the city with him to meet his rich family and friends huh yeah sounds like true love to me after some time they had two sons but as their babies grew maria began feeling a distance between her and her husband he would disappear for long stretches of time and never wanted to stay up late and talk with her as they used to in fact eventually he didn't want to talk to her at all what had she done wrong maria tried everything she could to regain her husband's affections but even when he was around his focus was solely on the children then one day he left and never came back maria waited and waited and waited nothing the boys grew and grew and grew still nothing until years later out of the blue her husband returned to town with a younger bride from a rich family turns out he had remarried in his home city wanted nothing more to do with maria and had only come back to retrieve his sons maria was devastated she tried to plead with him begging him not to cast her aside and rip her children from her but he cared not then she tried to flee with the boys until he caught her and cruelly said she must accept this fate but the thought of giving up her children to this monster was too much to bear so before she was forced to say goodbye she asked if she might take the two boys down to the river just for a picnic she said to say farewell to which the rich man begrudgingly agreed and that is just what maria did as she watched her children play by the riverbank for what could be the last time she set her resolve no no one would take her sons away from her and this this was the only way to keep that from happening and as a fire of sadness rage and confusion burned in her mind she grabbed both of her sons by the head and held them beneath the river's surface until air bubbles stopped rising as soon as the deed was done maria realized the horror she had committed i missed eos she cried out and ran to her husband to confess telling him she'd only done it for the love of her family furious and appalled her husband pushed her away and left the village with his new bride never to return maria had lost everything with no one to turn to and an overwhelming grief and shame she went back to the river and ended her own life the same way she had ended her sons it is said that maria wanted to be with her children in the afterlife to make her family whole again but when she got there she was dismissed she wouldn't be able to join with their souls so long as their bodies were lost in watery graves so maria returned to the river to find where it might have carried the bodies of her children but when she caught a glimpse of herself in the water's reflection she was horrified her beauty was now replaced with a frightening skeletal visage her face disfigured by death and grief but it mattered not she began her search for her lost voice and it said she wanders rivers even to this day eternally crying out [Music] through the years maria has been seen many times and her story has been told and retold again and as the mexican and indigenous people took her tale with them over great distances her story has changed shape in many places she's now known as la llerona or the weeping woman for the constant whaling that defines her ghostly wanderings throughout this world over the years some have said that she drags unsuspecting children screaming to their watery graves mistaking them for her own sons parents tell their little ones don't go out at night time lyrona will get you in fact parents have been known to use the threat of lyarona to get their children to do well pretty much whatever they want and while we can't tell you exactly how not doing your science project might incur the wrath of a child murdering river wraith we also can't promise that it won't so yeah it's interesting to see how as cultures change their myths can change and their uses can adapt to function as different warnings in fact recently lyrona's story has even been told as a metaphor for the colonization of mexico casting her previous life as the nahua woman who translated for hernan cortes thus aiding in the destruction of her people and damning herself and while that's an interesting take it's also important to remember that in many myths the buck is frequently passed to a mad woman when a man like cortes is actually the one enacting the horrible deeds so as a side note we should always be aware of that trope but in whatever form she appears one thing is certain if you go somewhere you shouldn't if you step out of line or if you get in the way of her search for her children you'll encounter la llerona so do the dishes for your mom all right did you all know that ahmed ziad turk alicia bramble casey muscha dominic valenciana gunner clovis kyle murgatroyd and o reals 1 were all legendary patrons thank you so much [Music] you

Channel: Extra Credits

Views: 149,061

Rating: 4.9164143 out of 5

Keywords: Extra credits, extra mythology, extra credits mythology, La Llarona, la llarona myth, hispanic myths, hispanic mythology, mexican myths, mexican mythology, ghost stories, weeping woman myth, woman in white myth, ghost myths

Id: NO088uuGJYM

Length: 7min 23sec (443 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020