Ghosts
Wrinkled skin dripping with fetid water, twisting fingernails covered with black muck, wailing and gnashing of teeth--and unspeakable sin. These images haunt the imaginations of millions of people; they also are part of the bedtime stories many children will hear tonight.
Have you heard of La Llorona? She is the most popular and infamous ghost in Latino folklore; in fact, the legend of La Llorona, the Wailing Woman, may be the oldest ghost story in the southwestern United States, South America, and Mexico. Stories about this disturbing and complex figure even existed as part of the Aztec culture thousands of years ago. Today, numerous versions of the legend are told wherever people speak Spanish. Generations of children have been scared by grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, and friends who told them about the ghost who haunts the rivers, ditches, and waterways of the world. The legendary Wailing Woman is not merely frightening; she is profoundly tragic and very real to many people.
The folklore of Spanish America is full of exciting accounts of a wandering, shrieking, tormented spirit called La Llorona, the "Wailing Woman." Her eerie spine-chilling cry was said to be an omen of death. This is the first serious account of the frightening tale that has fascinated people for generations. Ray John de Aragón, an expert on Spanish folklore, traditions and myths, traveled throughout the villages and byways of New Mexico searching out the roots of this very popular Spanish phantom. What he found was that every person he listened to had a different version. They sometimes placed her in their own towns as having been a local girl who had lived, loved, and then died a tragic death. She then arose, according to hearsay, and now she searches throughout the countryside for the children she lost in a watery grave. Some villagers even took him to a nearby river or arroyo to show him where La Llorona and her children drowned, but they always cautioned, "Don't come here late at night because she will appear to you crying, and she will follow you as you try to get away." The author then took the threads of the stories he heard and has woven them in a full length study of this famous ghost. Noted folklorist Pedro Ribera Ortega called this book in a review, "The tragic mythic love/ghost story laid out to scare even the bravest of readers."
ON HALLOWED AND HAUNTED GROUND
Discover the paranormal legacy of the Second World War. In this book, you will encounter dozens of phenomena in the European and Pacific theaters as well as historic locations in the US where the spirits of the dead are unable--or unwilling--to let the past go.
This book also shares fascinating stories of supernatural warfare. Learn about wizards and witches in England casting spells to hold the Germans at bay; Dion Fortune and the Fraternity of the Inner Light working magic in support of the Allies; and Aleister Crowley waging a psychic campaign to capture high-ranking Nazi, Rudolf Hess. Haunted World War II explores the high strangeness and haunted aftermath of the most devastating clash of nations in living history.