La Llorona

La Llorona is a well-known ghost from Latin America whose name means “the weeping woman.” It is believed she is the ghost of a woman who’s man left her after impregnating another woman. In an attempt to get revenge against him, she drowns their children in a pond. Due to her crime, she is bound to the area for eternity. She is thought to sing songs common to mothers to lure in children, often from under any body of water, and drags them to their deaths. Sometimes they would need to enter the water, but other times she would simply pounce on them as they get close to the waters edge. Often, children were warned to not get too close to bodies of water. Sometimes charms can be made in the form of rocks that have the name of the child’s maternal grandmother on it, and these can be used as protection.

Citations:

Maberry, Jonathan. Vampire Universe: The Dark World of Supernatural Beings That Haunt Us, Hunt Us, and Hunger for Us. United States, Kensington Publishing Corporation, 2006.