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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
These legends of the City of Mexico are of my finding, not of my making. They are genuine folk-stories. Each one of them is a true folk-growth from some obscure curious or tragical ancient matter that, taking hold upon the popular imagination, has had built up from it among the people a story satisfying to the popular heart. Many of them simply are historical traditions gone wrong: being rooted in substantial facts which have been disguised by the fanciful additions, or distorted by the sheer pe
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LEGEND OF DON JUAN MANUEL[1]
LEGEND OF DON JUAN MANUEL[1]
This Don Juan Manuel, Señor, was a rich and worthy gentleman who had the bad vice of killing people. Every night at eleven o'clock, when the Palace clock was striking, he went out from his magnificent house—as you know, Señor, it still is standing in the street that has been named after him—all muffled in his cloak, and under it his dagger in his hand. Then he would meet one, in the dark street, and would ask him politely: "What is the hour of the night?" And that person, having heard the striki
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LEGEND OF THE OBEDIENT DEAD NUN
LEGEND OF THE OBEDIENT DEAD NUN
It was after she was dead, Señor, that this nun did what she was told to do by the Mother Superior, and that is why it was a miracle. Also, it proved her goodness and her holiness—though, to be sure, there was no need for her to take the trouble to prove those matters, because everybody knew about them before she died. My grandmother told me that this wonder happened in the convent of Santa Brígida when her mother was a little girl; therefore you will perceive, Señor, that it did not occur yeste
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LEGEND OF THE PUENTE DEL CLÉRIGO
LEGEND OF THE PUENTE DEL CLÉRIGO
This priest who was murdered and thrown over the bridge, Señor, was a very good man, and there was very little excuse for murdering him. Moreover, he belonged to a most respectable family, and so did the gentleman who murdered him, and so did the young lady; and because of all that, and because at the best of times the killing of a priest is sacrilege, the scandal of that murder made a stir in the whole town. At that time—it was some hundreds of years ago, Señor—there lived in the street that no
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LEGEND OF THE MULATA DE CÓRDOBA
LEGEND OF THE MULATA DE CÓRDOBA
It is well known, Señor, that this Mulata of Córdoba, being a very beautiful woman, was in close touch with the devil. She dwelt in Córdoba—the town not far from Vera Cruz, where coffee and very good mangos are grown—and she was born so long ago that the very oldest man now living was not then alive. No one knew who was her father, or who was her mother, or where she came from. So she was called La Mulata de Córdoba—and that was all. One of the wonders of her was that the years passed her withou
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LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL MUERTO
LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL MUERTO
It is an unwise thing, Señor, and there also is wickedness in it, to make a vow to the Blessed Virgin—or, for that matter, to the smallest saint in the whole calendar—and not to fulfil that vow when the Blessed Virgin, or the saint, as the case may be, has performed punctually all that the vow was made for: and so this gentleman of whom I now am speaking found out for himself, and most uncomfortably, when he died with an unfulfilled vow on his shoulders—and had to take some of the time that he o
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LEGEND OF THE ALTAR DEL PERDON[2]
LEGEND OF THE ALTAR DEL PERDON[2]
This painter, Señor, who by a miracle painted the most beautiful picture of Our Lady of Mercy that is to be found in the whole world—the very picture that ever since has adorned the Altar del Perdon in the Cathedral—in the beginning of him was a very bad sinner: being a Fleming, and a Jew, and many other things that he ought not to have been, and therefore straight in the way to pass the whole of Eternity—his wickednesses being so numerous that time would have been wasted in trying to purge him
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LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL ARMADO
LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL ARMADO
This Alleyway of the Armed One, Señor, got its name because long ago—before it had any name at all—there lived in it an old man who went always clad in armor, wearing also his sword and his dagger at his side; and all that was known about him was that his name was Don Lope de Armijo y Lara, and that—for all that he lived so meanly in so mean a street in so mean a quarter of the City—he was a rich merchant, and that he came from Spain. Into his poor little house no one ever got so much as the tip
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LEGEND OF THE ADUANA DE SANTO DOMINGO[3]
LEGEND OF THE ADUANA DE SANTO DOMINGO[3]
This gentleman who for love's sake, Señor, conquered his coldness and his laziness and became all fire and energy, was named Don Juan Gutiérrez Rubín de Celis. He was a caballero of the Order of Santiago—some say that he wore also the habit of Calatrava—and the colonel of the regiment of the Tres Villas. He was of a lovable nature, and ostentatious and arrogant, and in all his ways dilatory and apathetic to the very last degree. So great were his riches that not even he himself knew the sum of t
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA QUEMADA
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA QUEMADA
Not knowing what they are talking about, Señor, many people will tell you that the Street of the Burned Woman got its name because—in the times when the Holy Office was helping the goodness of good people by making things very bad for the bad ones—a woman heretic most properly and satisfactorily was burned there. Such is not in the least the case. The Quemadero of the Inquisition—where such sinners were burned, that their sins might be burned out of them—was nowhere near the Calle de la Quemada:
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA CRUZ VERDE[4]
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA CRUZ VERDE[4]
This story is not a sad one, Señor, like the others. It is a joyful story of a gentleman and a lady who loved each other, and were married, and lived in happiness together until they died. And it was because of his happiness that the gentleman caused to be carved on the corner of his house, below the balcony on which he saw that day the sign which gave hope to him, this great green cross of stone that is there still. The house with the green cross on it, Señor, stands at the corner of the Calle
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LEGEND OF LA MUJER HERRADA[5]
LEGEND OF LA MUJER HERRADA[5]
I do not know when this matter happened, Señor; but my grandfather, who told me about it, spoke as though all three of them—the priest, and the blacksmith, and the woman—had lived a long while before his time. However, my grandfather said that the priest and the woman, who was his housekeeper, pretty certainly lived in a house—it is gone now, Señor—that was in the street that is called the Puerta Falsa de Santo Domingo. And he said that the blacksmith certainly did live in a house in the Calle d
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LEGEND OF THE ACCURSED BELL[6]
LEGEND OF THE ACCURSED BELL[6]
This story, Señor—it is about the accursed bell that once was the clock-bell of the Palace—has so many beginnings that the only way really to get at the bones of it would be for a number of people, all talking at once, to tell the different first parts of it at the same time. For, you see, the curse that was upon this bell—that caused it to be brought to trial before the Consejo of the Inquisition, and by the Consejo to be condemned to have its wicked tongue torn out and to be banished from Spai
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LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA[7]
LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA[7]
Who Padre Lecuona was, Señor, and what he did or had done to him in this street that caused his name to be given to it, I do not know. The Padre about whom I now am telling you, who had this strange thing happen to him in this street, was named Lanza; but he was called by everybody Lanchitas—according to our custom of giving such endearing diminutives to the names of those whom we love. He deserved to be loved, this excellent Padre Lanchitas: because he himself loved everybody, and freely gave t
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LEGEND OF THE LIVING SPECTRE[8]
LEGEND OF THE LIVING SPECTRE[8]
Apparitions of dead people, Señor, of course are numerous and frequent. I myself—as on other occasions I have mentioned to you—have seen several spectres, and so have various of my friends. But this spectre of which I now am telling you—that appeared on the Plaza Mayor at noonday, and was seen by everybody—was altogether out of the ordinary: being not in the least a dead person, but a person who wore his own flesh and bones in the usual manner and was alive in them; yet who certainly was walking
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LOS PARADOS
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LOS PARADOS
Two dead lovers, Señor, stand always in the Calle de los Parados, one at each end of it; and that is why—because they remain steadfastly on parade there, though it is not everybody who happens to see their yellow skeletons on those corners—the street of the Parados is so named. As you may suppose, Señor, the lovers now being dry skeletons, what brought them there happened some time ago. Just when it happened, I do not know precisely; but it was when an excellent gentleman, who was an officer in
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA JOYA
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA JOYA
What this street was called, in very old times, Señor, no one knows: because the dreadful thing that gave to it the name of the Street of the Jewel happened a long, long while ago. It was before the Independence. It was while the Viceroys were here who were sent by the King of Spain. In those days there lived in this fine house at the corner of the Calle de Mesones and what since then has been called the Calle de la Joya—it is at the northwest corner, Señor, and a biscuit-bakery is on the lower
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA MACHINCUEPA
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA MACHINCUEPA
Naturally, Señor, this matter which gave its name to the Calle de la Machincuepa created a scandal that set all the tongues in the City to buzzing about it: every one, of course, blaming the young lady—even though she did it to win such vast riches—for committing so publicly so great an impropriety; but some holding that a greater blame attached to the Marqués, her uncle, for punishing her—no matter how much she deserved punishment—by making her inheritance depend upon so strange and so outrageo
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DEL PUENTE DEL CUERVO
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DEL PUENTE DEL CUERVO
As you know, Señor, in the street that is called the Street of the Bridge of the Raven, there nowadays is no bridge at all; also, the house is gone in which this Don Rodrigo de Ballesteros lived with his raven in the days when he was alive. As to the raven, however, matters are less certain. My grand-father long ago told me that more than once, on nights of storm, he had heard that evil bird uttering his wicked caws at midnight between the thunderclaps; and a most respectable cargador of my acqu
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LEGEND OF LA LLORONA[9]
LEGEND OF LA LLORONA[9]
As is generally known, Señor, many bad things are met with by night in the streets of the City; but this Wailing Woman, La Llorona, is the very worst of them all. She is worse by far than the vaca de lumbre—that at midnight comes forth from the potrero of San Pablo and goes galloping through the streets like a blazing whirlwind, breathing forth from her nostrils smoke and sparks and flames: because the Fiery Cow, Señor, while a dangerous animal to look at, really does no harm whatever—and La Llo
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LEGEND OF DON JUAN MANUEL
LEGEND OF DON JUAN MANUEL
Don Juan Manuel was a real person: who lived stately in a great house, still standing, in the street that in his time was called the Calle Nueva, and that since his time has borne his name; who certainly did murder one man—in that house, not in the street—at about, probably, eleven o'clock at night; and who certainly was found hanging dead on the gallows in front of the Capilla de la Espiración, of an October morning in the year 1641, without any explanation ever being forthcoming of how he got
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LEGEND OF THE ALTAR DEL PERDON
LEGEND OF THE ALTAR DEL PERDON
Simon Peyrens, a Flemish painter, came to Mexico in the suite of the third Viceroy (1566-1568) Don Gastón de Peralta, Marqués de Falces. If he painted—and, presumably, he did paint—a Virgin of Mercy for the Altar del Perdon, his picture has disappeared: doubtless having been removed from the altar when the present Cathedral (begun, 1573; dedicated, though then incomplete, 1656) replaced the primitive structure erected a few years after the Conquest. The Virgin of the Candelaria on the existing A
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LEGEND OF THE ADUANA DE STO. DOMINGO
LEGEND OF THE ADUANA DE STO. DOMINGO
Carved over an arch half-way up the main stairway of the ex-Aduana—the building no longer is used as a custom-house—still may be read Don Juan's acrostic inscription that sets forth the initials of Doña Sara de García Somera y Acuña, the lady for whom he so furiously toiled: Siendo prior del Consulado el coronel D^n Juan Gutierrez Rubin de Celis, caballero del Orden de S n tiago, y consules D n Garza de Alvarado del mismo Orden, y D n Lucas Serafin Chacon, se acabó la fabrica de esta Aduana en 2
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LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA CRUZ VERDE
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA CRUZ VERDE
Señor Arellano has documented the legend of the Green Cross by adding to his sympathetic version of it the following note: "Some years ago I saw in either the church of San Miguel or the church of San Pablo, set aside in a corner, a bronze tablet that once had rested upon a tomb. On it was the inscription, 'Doña María de Aldarafuente Lara y Segura de Manrique. Agosto 11 de 1573 años. R.I.P.'; and beneath the inscription was a large Latin cross. Probably the tablet was melted up. When I went to l
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LEGEND OF THE MUJER HERRADA
LEGEND OF THE MUJER HERRADA
Doubtless this legend has for its foundation an ancient real scandal: that—being too notorious to be hushed up—of set purpose was given to the public in a highly edifying way. Certainly, the story seems to have been put in shape by the clerics—the class most interested in checking such open abuses—with the view of driving home a deterrent moral by exhibiting so exemplary a punishment of sin. Substantially as in the popular version that I have used in my text, Don Francisco Sedano (circa 1760) te
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LEGEND OF THE ACCURSED BELL
LEGEND OF THE ACCURSED BELL
This legend affords an interesting example of folk-growth. As told by Señor Obregón, the story simply is of a church bell "in a little town in Spain" that, being possessed by a devil, rang in an unseemly fashion without human aid; and for that sin was condemned to have its tongue torn out and to be banished to Mexico. As told by Señor Arellano, the story begins with armor that was devil-possessed because worn by the devil-possessed Gil de Marcadante. This armor is recast into a cross wherein the
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LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA
LEGEND OF THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA
By a natural confusion of the name of the street in which the dead man was confessed with the name of the priest who heard his confession, this legend frequently is told nowadays as relating not to Padre Lanza but to Padre Lecuona. An old man whom I met in the Callejón del Padre Lecuona, when I was making search for the scene of the confession, told me the story in that way—and pointed out the house to me in all sincerity. Following that telling, I so mixed the matter myself in my first publicat
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LEGEND OF THE LIVING SPECTRE
LEGEND OF THE LIVING SPECTRE
The theme of this legend—the transportation by supernatural means of a living person from one part of the world to another—is among the most widely distributed of folk-story motives. In The Arabian Nights —to name an easily accessible work of reference—it is found repeatedly in varying forms. In Irving's Alhambra a version of it is given—"Governor Manco and the Old Soldier"—that has a suggestive resemblance to the version of my text. Distinction is given to the Mexican story, however, by its pre
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LEGEND OF LA LLORONA
LEGEND OF LA LLORONA
This legend is not, as all of the other legends are, of Spanish-Mexican origin: it is wholly Mexican—a direct survival from primitive times. Seemingly without perceiving—certainly without noting—the connection between an Aztec goddess and this the most widely distributed of all Mexican folk-stories, Señor Orozco y Berra wrote: "The Tloque Nahuaque [Universal Creator] created in a garden a man and a woman who were the progenitors of the human race.... The woman was called Cihuacohuatl, 'the woman
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