La Llorona is Spanish for "The Crying Woman," and is a popular legend in Spanish-speaking cultures in the Americas, with many versions according to the country. The basic version is that La Llorona was a beautiful woman who killed her children after having loved a man and having been rejected by him. He might have been the children's father, and left their mother for another woman, or he might have been a man she loved, but who was uninterested in a relationship with a woman with children, and whom she thought she could win if the children were out of the way. She drowned the children then killed herself, and is doomed to wander, searching for her children, always weeping. In some cases, according to the tale, she will kidnap wandering children.