the ugly earring

A beautiful young woman with two small children lived in the poorest section of Juarez, Mexico. She was madly in love with a very rich man. He felt the same way about her, but he, having no interest in children, refused to marry her. Late one night, the woman took her children to a bridge over the Rio Grande river. In the dead of the night, she heartlessly stabbed her children and threw in the river to drown. Still wearing her bloody nightgown, she went to her lover’s home to show him the great lengths she had gone to be with him. The man, seeing her blood-streaked nightgown, was horrified and rejected her. Then, finally realizing the horrible mistake she had made, she ran back to the river screaming, crying, and tearing at her hair, desperately trying to save her children. But it was too late. The woman stabbed and drowned herself in the same river.

The legend has it that as punishment for her unspeakable sins she was given the head of a horse, and was to wander the banks of the Rio Grande for all of eternity looking for her lost children.

a La Llorona legend.