Creepy tales are all part of folklore. Halloween is not considered a traditional holiday in Costa Rica, but the information here is rich with scary stories. Although few people really believe in ghosts these days, it doesn’t hurt to pay attention. These tales were said to be based on events during the colonial period and were repeated as warnings to follow the straight and narrow path. Or…

La Segua

Central America’s own version of the Sirens. Young men (and perhaps some older men too) rode home on their trusty horses after a night spent in the canteen or by the roadside. But then he comes across a damsel in distress on the side of the road. And he’s quite attractive. The man, a brave man, helps him onto the horse’s back and they set off.

Along the way, he notices the bad smells and intense groans of his passenger. He turns around and sees this: woman fatal transformed into La Segua, a rotten horse-headed monster.

He swears that if he does not succumb to a heart attack, he will change his flirtatious attitude, calm down and marry his neighbor’s simple but respectable daughter. He also vows to never help a stranger in need again. This is a somewhat dubious lesson. To be fair, the Tico Times does not condone picking up hitchhikers.

El Cadejo

Another story from the colonial period, this is the story of a rebellious young man whose father decides to teach him a lesson. The father, himself a sorcerer, promised to turn his son into a dog if the young man continued his life of sin. And not just any dog, but a big, black, hairy dog ​​with red eyes and goat feet.

So basically a goat dog. This is much worse than a normal dog. The creature is also doomed to wear a chain behind his back (did you know that leash laws actually started in colonial times?). The son ignored his father’s advice and soon transformed into the devil dog Cadejo.

Many people swear they heard Cadejo rattling his chain and grunting as he drove home along rural roads in the dead of night.

Headless Priest

Wow, life must have been wild in colonial times. There are various versions of headless clerics. Here are some of the most popular versions:

One of the stories tells of a religious man who was beheaded because of a married woman in his neighborhood. It was not the hand of God that shot him, but the woman’s husband who ripped the priest’s head off his neck. While he was blessing his host, he killed him at the altar. Headless priest travels across the country to find the missing cabeza. Residents of Cartago claim that this ghost appeared in the ruins of the cathedral, which was destroyed in the earthquake, rebuilt and destroyed a second time. A vengeful god seems to shake the ground beneath the church every time it is rebuilt, and the cathedral remains in ruins to this day.

San Ramón has its own version. The priest there loved to gamble and had amassed quite a fortune. He was forced to make a trip to Nicaragua and secretly buried his treasure under a tree in San Ramón. During his trip, the priest was beheaded. But because he was worried about his wealth, he returned without his head to watch over his treasure. To this day it is hidden in the bushes to ensure no one steals it.

In Patarrá, another headless priest hides in the bushes around the church to scare sinners into changing their ways. It is difficult to see it as it is hidden in the greenery, but churchgoers feel its presence. Another story tells of a priest who was beheaded by the Inquisition for skirt-chasing and wandered the countryside looking for his head. The question is: How many headless priests live in Costa Rica? This is a very strong Catholic crime.

Oxless Cart

this story There are several versions of it too. When San José was first settled in the 1700s, it was surrounded by forests. But the trees provided abundant timber for the growing town, and part of the forest was devoted to the construction of a church, the most important construction of any community.

However, not everyone was satisfied, and a man sneakily cut and took the wood to build himself a new oxcart. It would be the strongest oxcart in the city and everyone would be very jealous of this new oxcart. He even considered drawing sickly flames on the side of the car, but before he had the chance, St. Joseph took his revenge.

The city’s patron saint took a tough stance against wood thieves. As punishment, he forced the thief to drive around the country in his car until the end of time. The oxen, who had committed no crime, were released. But the oxless cart rolls noisily along every night. It is said that the man died years ago but his body is still in the car. The story ends with a warning that looking at the car will result in instant death.

No living person can claim to have seen the cart with the oxen slowly passing by, because they were too afraid to look, but many claim to have heard it.

La Llorona

La Llorona She is a weeping woman who wanders the rivers to find her lost child. There are various versions of this story, but they all center around a young woman who has a child out of wedlock, against family wishes and society standards. In one version, she is a young girl from the country who works in a house in San José. There she is seduced by the owner of the house and later rejects him when she becomes pregnant.

He returned home in shame and fear, to the disapproval of his family. One rainy night, she threw the baby into the river. La Llorona walks the shores now and forever trying to find her baby and make amends. Cries of regret are often heard near rivers.

Another version describes her as an Indian girl who fell in love with a Spanish conquistador. Even though they want to get married, their father is against it. However, when the girl becomes pregnant, the father throws the baby into a waterfall and is taken there. And a tearful Llorona is forced to wander the coasts of the country to find her child.

When it comes to images, La Llorona’s comments might be the scariest. We did a Google image search for you. click Here if you dare.

The story is not forgotten. You can watch the movie “The Curse of La Llorona” and see the legend come to life.

Macho Chingo

Macho Chingo was either a Gringo or a German who liked to walk around naked in Atenas because of the heat. (In some versions of the story, he inexplicably wears a tie.) Word macho While it is used for fair-skinned blondes, chingo It means naked in slang. The Stranger still likes to wander the streets of Atenas in his birthday suit, and there’s even a hill named after Macho Chingo. But now he’s a ghost. And not just any ghost… a naked ghost.

El Puente de Piedra

There is a bridge in Grecia called Puente de Piedra. The devil built this bridge at the behest of a cunning Costa Rican who wanted to cross the river. Having no faith in MOPT to get the job done, Costa Rica instead chose to trade Beezlebub’s soul in exchange for building a stone bridge. But the devil had to finish his job before the rooster crowed at dawn.

The Devil was busy pulling stones from the river and piling them up to form the bridge, and when he had only one more place to fill, Tico grabbed a rooster wandering nearby and squeezed it, making it crow. So he canceled the contract and defeated the Dark Lord Satan. When you look at the bridge from below, you can see where the last stone should fall.

This story was first published on October 28, 2013.