The woman by the river

In many towns there is a river, and by that river there is a story. People say a woman walks along the water at night. She wears a long white dress and she is always crying. Old people tell children not to go near the river after dark.

Her name is La Llorona, the woman who cries. Many years ago she lived in a small house near the water with her two children. She loved them more than anything. Her husband left one summer and never came back, and she waited for him for months.

Nobody knows exactly what happened that night. Some say the river was high after the rain. Others say she was too tired and too sad to see clearly. In the morning her children were gone, and the water was quiet again.

Since then people hear her voice in the dark. She calls her children, and the sound comes from the water. Some say she is dangerous. Others say she is only a mother who cannot stop looking. In every town the story changes a little, but the crying is always the same.