The legend says that one day, in 1967, a countryside family was preparing to leave the land they had lived on for years and had worked so hard to harvest. They had a beautiful piece of land, full of fruit trees, wildflowers, spring water, and a starry sky every night, but tragedy knocked on their door and nothing was ever the same again.
Rosario, one of his daughters, had dishonored the ancestral lineage by living as a concubine with the son of a foreman cowboy. From this unblessed union, two children were born and one New Year’s Eve, during the family dinner, they gathered at the farm to celebrate. Between drinks and shots, the two children were playing around. A few meters away was the deep water well that supplied their needs. No one noticed it, no one thought about it, no one heard it. Too late, they realized that the children were no longer shouting, nor were they answering.
Where are they? asked Amalia, their aunt. “I don’t see them,” answered Rosario, their mother. It was their grief-stricken father who noticed the bodies floating in a poorly covered well, where they, unfortunately, jumped in.
What a sad departure, only tears, and desolation for two children who barely knew love.
The ancestral tradition was to give burial on the same property and that is why they decided to bury the little bodies next to the milking pen without thinking too much.
From that night and forever, a wail of horror could be heard and the crying of the little ones echoed all around.
Unable to bear the tragedy, they sold their land to anybody making the best offer, and since then everyone in that house wondered with terror: where does that light come from? What is that smell of shroud? It must be the children crying by the milking pen, looking for the blessed grace they never received.
Two brave men, tired and sleepless, came to the place, carrying with them a silver crucifix with which they asked the children why they could not rest, to which they replied, “We were never baptized and here we remain tied, stuck in Cunaviche until someone dares to open a portal, to these souls in pain who have not been able to fly away.”
“Major, just tell me,” said the foreman. “Olivo, bring the priest and the sacristan, without their help, we will not be able to solve the problem” the Major replied.
Two bottles of holy water, four prayer candles, a rosary, and half an hour of non-stop prayers, finally put these children to rest in peace and since then no one has ever asked again who is crying in the milking pen.
In the series “Countryside Stories”.
Written by Layla Garrido