3: The single leg

It lives among the thick tangle of the virgin forest, on the summits of the plain. With the only leg that has advances with amazing speed. It is the endriago most feared by settlers, miners, hunters, walkers, farmers and lumberjacks.

Some adventurers say that she is a beautiful woman who calls and attracts them to fall in love, but she advances towards the darkness of the forest where she leads them with her lascivious glances, until she becomes a horrible woman with eyes of fire, disproportionate mouth from where they appear some feline teeth and short, disheveled hair that falls on his face to hide his ugliness.

At other times, they hear the cries of a lost woman; they scream to help her, but the moans become more pitiful as she advances towards the victim and when she is very close, she becomes a beast that throws herself on the person, sucks her blood and ends up crushing her with her sharp fangs.

The defense of any person who sees it, consists of surrounding themselves with domestic animals, although they warn that dogs outnumber them, qualifying them all as "blessed" animals.

It is said that this character was invented by jealous men to frighten their unfaithful wives, instill terror and at the same time, recognize the benefits of the jungle. They say that in a certain region of Tolima Grande, a tenant had as his wife a very beautiful woman and in her he had three children.

The owner of the ranch wanted to get a consort and called one of the most trusted cowboys to say: "... go to the ravine and choose among the washerwomen the best, then tell me who it is and how it is ..." . The man left, watched them all carefully, instantly distinguished the wife of a fellow cowboy and friend, who was the youngest, was the most beautiful. The cowboy returned to give the employer the filiation and other information about the best.

When the time came for the "vaquerías", the husband of the beauty told the cowboy emissary his sadness, complained about his wife, because he felt cold, less affectionate and no longer arranged his clothes with the same assiduity as before; he lived a bad temper, he had been a despot for a few days now. He confessed that it caused him to go away, but he gave him grief with his children.

The cowboy, knowing the secret, sympathizing with his friend's situation, told him about the boss, warning that he had no guilt.

The saddened and betrayed husband thanked his partner for his frankness and went to ponder alone on the matter and said: "... if I could convince me that my wife cheats me with the boss, forgive me God, because I do not answer what happens ... " Then he planned a test and went to his home. There he told his wife that he was leaving for the town because his employer sent him for correspondence; That he did not come back that night. He kissed goodbye and caressed his children. At a gallop, he went out in different places to kill time. He reached the canteen and downed a few gulps of brandy. At about nine o'clock at night he went on foot through the forest and the waste to spy on his wife.

It would be about ten o'clock at night, when the woman, seeing that the husband did not arrive, went to the hacienda in search of her employer. The husband, when he saw that the woman was going down the road to the herd, came out of the hiding place, came to the house, found the children asleep and went to bed. As the dawn arrived the infidel very calm and serene. The husband said: Where are you coming from? She answered with carelessness: to wash some clothes. At night ???, I cut the husband.

A few days later, the deceived husband invented a new trip. He mounted his horse, circled several times in a pasture and then kept it in a neighboring stall. At night, he came on foot to hide in the banana tree that was in front of his ranch. That night the woman did not leave but the boss came to visit her. When the rich landowner arrived at the door, the woman came out to meet him and threw herself into his arms, kissing and caressing him.

The enraged husband who was seeing everything, jumped with the comb raised and without giving time to the lover to get rid of the haul, cut his head with a single machete. The woman, between surprised and horrified wanted to run away, but the energetic husband gave him a tremendous peinillazo to the rump under his leg as if it were the branch of a tree. Both died almost at the same time. The cowboy was sentenced to jail, but when he left shortly after, he returned for the three boys and set fire to the house.

The people claim to have seen her jumping on one leg, by mountain ranges, ravines and roads, distilling blood and throwing pitiful cries. It is the soul in pain of the unfaithful woman who wanders through mountains, valleys and plains, who dishonored her children and did not know how to respect her husband.

2: The man in the hat

It is a character who lived in ancient times in different towns. He was an enigmatic man who dressed in black and put on a big hat of the same color, rode a brisk black horse that was confused with the night, he did not talk to anyone and nobody hurt him; it appeared and disappeared as if by magic.

The old man was on the side of the road and although he died, people still feel his presence. Physically, he is described as a mature man, with a large, well-dressed hat, with a dark face and an attitude of permanent observation. The people who have seen him say that he is accompanied by two huge black dogs held by thick chains.

The night owls who have seen him or who have been presented, say they see the figure that comes to the road, makes them run and shouts "IF I ACHIEVE YOU I PUT YOU", always chases the drunks, the fighters, the night owls and the cheats and inveterate players. Take advantage of the lonely sites. On moonlit nights it is easy to mistake it for the shadows cast by branches and bushes. It always arrives at night at full gallop, accompanied by a strong icy wind and disappears quickly.

He was famous in Medellin in 1837, when he traveled all the streets. It appeared four or five consecutive Fridays, it reappeared one or two months later. It seems that it was the hat, the terror of Medellín itself. "

There are also chronicles of his wanderings through towns in the southwest such as Andes, Bolívar and Jardín and through the towns along the San Juan and Baudó rivers. In other Colombian regions such as Tolima, Huila and eastern Cauca Valley, it is called the Black Rider and is described in a very similar way as described here.

For the southwest of Antioquia, they also mention it as "El Jinete sin Zamarros", and it is described with slight variations. They attribute different forms of presentation, the most frequent of which is that of a tall, corpulent man, mourning, ending in a skull, adorned with a black hat with wide wings.

1: the weeping woman

the weeping woman turned into the vagabond spirit of a woman who carries a child in the square, alludes to her name because she wanders crying on the roads. It is said that he never sees his face and cries of shame and regret for what he did to his family.

Those who have seen him say that she is a muddled and muddy woman, red eyes, dirty and frayed dresses. He carries in his arms a package as a newborn child. It does not hurt people, but their complaints and screams terrorize screaming at their son.

The apparitions take place in solitary places, from eight in the evening until five in the morning. Their favorite sites are the gorges, lagoons and deep puddles, where you hear the plague and the pitiful woes. It appears to the unfaithful men, to the perverse ones, to the drunkards, to the players and in short, to all being that goes around plotting evils.

Tradition says that the weeping woman demands from people help to carry the child; when he receives it, he gets rid of the punishment by becoming the weeper the person who has received it. Other eversions say that it is the spirit of a woman who killed the mother out of jealousy and set fire to the house with her mother inside, receiving from her, at the moment of agonizing the curse that condemned her: "You will walk without God and without saint Mary, persecuting men on the roads of the plain. "

During the civil war, was established in the Villa of thePalmas or Purification, a General Command, where people from different parts of the country gathered.

One of his captains, of not very recommendable conduct and who found in the war an amusing adventure to vent his past as an assault and crime, settled with his wife in this town, which he soon left to continue fighting.

Her grieving and abandoned wife devoted herself to the dressmaking so as not to starve herself while her husband returned and ended the war.

As time went by people circulated the news of the death of the captain and the poor lady kept a rigorous mourning until she was presented with a soldier who was part of the battalion of recruits who came from the capital to the south, but due to special circumstances , I had to delay in that location for a few weeks.

The widow convinced of the assertions about the death of her husband, believed that in that new love he was a lenient for his grief, he accepted the young man and he became intimate with him.

The days of passionate madness passed quickly and again the seamstress was savoring abandonment, loneliness, poverty and sipping tears for the absence of her beloved.

That adventurer left indelible marks on the troubled woman, because a few days later she felt the fruit of her love throb in her insides.

The time passed without hearing of his beloved. The longing became tender to see that they met the nine moons of his pregnancy.

A battalion of combatants was returning from the south on the same day that the seamstress gave birth to a skinny, pale child. That silent and poor cartridge was happy with the weeping of the little one.

At dusk that same day, a neighbor friend came running to her house, informing her that her husband, the captain, had not died, because without fear of being wrong, he had just seen him among the troop corps that was arriving at the camp.

In such an importunate moment, that news was like to faint, not because of the case that a few hours before he had endured, as by the physical exhaustion in which he was. Thousands of thoughts flowed into his feverish mind. She rose resolutely from her bed. He put a frayed robe on his shoulders, took the newborn, wrapped him well, grabbed him tightly against his chest believing that he would be snatched and without closing the door he left the hut, running with difficulty. He walked along the dark path bordered by a shrub and protected by the black cloak of the night.

Thick raindrops began to fall, it was still running, the thunderclouds were denser, the tempest unleashed with more fury. The lights from the lightning illuminated the way. Nature shook with death throes. The insane cried. The streams grew, they overflowed. At the end of the trail he found the first stream, but the woman could not see. He entered the impetuous current that quickly overwhelmed her. The waters bellowed. In its loud roars, the lament of a woman seemed to be felt.