La Llorona: Encounters With the Weeping Woman

La Llorona, 'the weeping woman,' is as well known to the descendants of the Spaniards in the Hispanic world as the 'bogeyman' is to many Anglo cultures. In this book of nearly fifty stories told by people from the Southwestern U.S., the dozens of descriptions of La Llorona include a creature nine feet tall and floating across a creek, a ball of fire rolling in your direction, and a gnomish little person with warts on her nose. No matter what she looks like, she nearly always manages to terrorize her wayward victims into changing their ways.