The folkloric inspirations for Supernatural’s first ever monster-of-the-week were cleverly translated to screen.
Supernaturalhad one of the strongest pilot episodes of the 2000s.
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The pilotset up this pattern expertly.
All these are different women…
But all share the same story…
When they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them.
And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity murdered their children.
Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives.
So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways.
And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him.
Sam is describing a character well known in Mexican folklore as La Llorona, the Weeping Woman.
He gives a pretty accurate description of the most common form of the legend, though there are variations.
The priests identified this woman as the goddess Cihuacoatl, who had prophetic abilities.
Supernaturaladds another element to the Weeping Womans story, making her a phantom hitchhiker as well.
On the European side, she shares some traits with a couple of different characters from Greek mythology.
Other stories are more sinister.
Its perhaps not surprising that white kimonos became associated with ghosts in Japanese stories, theatre, and art.
In 1750, artist Maruyama Okyo saw a vision at night of his dead lover Oyuki.
Okyo painted what he had seen in the vision, and he started a trend.
They often sit by rivers, combing their hair, or washing the clothes of the doomed person.
One particularly spine-chilling story of the Welsh Y Ladi Wen combines several of these elements.
Her ghost was seen several times during the nineteenth century, moving between the pool and a nearby cave.
All four lost immediate family members shortly afterwards.
These White Ladies are seen across Europe in several different places.
Supernaturalis streaming now on Netflix in the US, and on Prime Video in the UK.
