La Viudita (the black widow): This legend is common in all of Latin America, as it is probably of Spanish origin. It tells of a beautiful woman, veiled and dressed in black from head to foot, who walks in the streets after midnight trying to get inebriated men to her house or any other faraway place, where she takes her veil off to reveal a horrible skull.

Her victims, always drunken men in search of fly-by-night dates, were scared to death and usually fainted after seeing the face of a skeleton and hearing her hair-raising laughter. Once they regained consciousness at dawn, those men usually found themselves lying in a stinking puddle or covered by thistles, and swore never to party till late hours again.