Folklore

As with many countries, Ecuador is a country rich in culture, legends and folklore. Folklore in Ecuador takes on many forms and there is different folklore connected to individual areas, cities and even buildings. Some folklore in Ecuador has inspired festivals while others are dedicated to legends and cultural beliefs.

When traveling through Cuenca, you will be able to hear the stories of the Enchanted Stone, the Gargoyles, the Lamp of the Widow, the Chained Dog and the Witches. Some Ecuadorian Folklore was created to keep children from wrong doing, as is the case with the story of the Enchanted Stone. The Enchanted Stone, it is said, had great powers and closed the city off from a dark and mysterious part of the metropolis. Located in the Working District, it could grant wishes and was a wealth of information. Out of fear for the stone, no-one dared to talk to it. It also had the power to punish children who did not listen to their parents and of course this is the power that is emphasized the most in the story. The story was created to keep children away from this specific part of the city, as it was a place where young lovers were known to meet. It is said that Gargoyles cry like children when they come into contact with love affairs, while the story of the Lamp of the Widow originates in the El Vado District. It is said that the widow took the form of a haggard old woman as a disguise to travel to her lover unnoticed.

Quito overflows with Ecuadorian Folklore and you can hear a different legend or story on almost each street corner. According to legend, the indigenous foundation of Quito revolves around the story of the King and a falling star that he and his people followed on the insistence of the gods. The star took them to the Pichincha Volcano, where they relocated and established the city of Quito. You will also hear the tale of the Cathedral Rooster and the insulting wealthy man that passed the cathedral every day on route to his favorite watering hole. And there are many other stories and legends just like these.

Cantuna also has its own folklores. One of the most popular is the story of the building of the San Francisco Atrium. It is said that a man by the name of Cantuna was falling behind schedule on the building that he was being paid for. After many prayers and hours of work, Cantuna thought he would never finish. One day, Satan stopped by to offer Cantuna help in exchange for his soul. A deal was made on the condition that not one stone was to be out of place. The devil’s workers built the church, but in their haste forgot a stone and Cantuna was able to keep his soul.

Each story and legend is part of the intricately woven fabric of folklore of Ecuador. These stories serve to enrich each city and town with culture and history. When traveling through Ecuador, be sure to ask the locals about their folklore and legends, as they are guaranteed to be fascinating and give you a little insight into the history and culture of the country.

The Spook

It was the summer holidays and I was seven. Me my sister and Mum and Dad were going to Ecuador to my granddad and grandma's holiday home. We went their lot back then until one day when we saw what me and my brother now call The Spook. Earlier on that year my granddad died and that's why my grandma moved away, she said there were too many bad memories there.

Anyway back to the story, one summer we all went their. The first night we had fun and everything was normal and in order, but then the second night I heard footsteps outside my sister's room. I took no notice and thought it was just her going to the bathroom, But then suddenly I heard her scream in her room and she was shouting "get off of me get off of me leave me alone!" I ran to her room and so did Mum and Dad. We saw a white figure on her. Mum screamed I just stood their scared but Dad ran to her, by the time he got there (in half a second) the figure was gone! Then my sister went to sleep with my Mum and Dad and I went back to my own bed. I couldn't sleep the rest of the night though.

The next day my sister was sick. She looked very pale so my Mum and Dad took her to the doctor. The doctor just said "it's just her nerves" So we went back to the holiday home to pack our things since we were leaving in two days. We wanted to do it that day because the next we were going sight-seeing before we left. Later on we finally finished packing and my sister was looking better. We all went to watch T.V together. My Dad turned it on but it wouldn't come on instead we heard a voice from nowhere chanting "get out" it got louder and louder. "Come on where leaving" My dad shouted picking our bags up. My sister was paler than ever now. As we went towards the door the voice got quieter. We opened our front door and the voice was now just a whisper we went out and the voice just stopped.

We had to spend the rest of the night in a hotel. Now we know why our grandma left it wasn't just the bad memories it was The Spook. We never went back there since.

The Green House

This happened to me, when I was seven years old. Here in my country, we have a rich folklore. Mainly, all stories and myths happen to be with encounters with the dead and demons. I didn't believe in these things, until I moved to the green house.

In the beginning, everything was normal, although, I had a bad sense about the house. When I was alone, I felt that someone or something was looking me, but I saw no one. Other common things in this house, was to feel sudden changes in temperature.

I really never minded, until one night. I woke up from a nightmare. I was sweating and I had a lot of thirst so I went to the kitchen to get some water. This house connected all the rooms with one single hallway or corridor. As soon as I got my self out of the room I felt this strange feeling of being seen plus the sudden drop of temperature.

I got really scared and then I fixed my view to the end of the hallway where I saw a dark figure which slowly moves towards me. I was creeped out! I knew this wasn't my sister, because, she was still a baby. I ran as fast as possible to my parent's room.

Days and weeks passed since that night. I started to loose fear of the specter. At this time I began to sleep with my door closed. One night, I woke up from a nightmare. In my dreams I felt as if a rotting body pulled my feet to drag me under the bed. When I woke up I thought I heard the sound of nails scratching my door, in fact the noise was so hard it completely made me wake up. I hid under the covers. After a few minutes the sound stopped, but I was so scared I couldn't sleep for the whole night.

Two months after this last experience, we moved from that house, thanks to those experiences I started to believe and comprehend that the world we see is just very small, out there strange things happen, and there are worlds we can't see.

The Beast On The Road

Six years had passed since the events from "the green house". I knew that since that experience, my life was going to change for ever.

Now, getting into the story, I was on summer vacations-my father has a house on Puerto Cayo-so I went with my sister and my dad for a week. Puerto Cayo is located on the province of Manabi in Ecuador.

It was Friday afternoon, when I decided to go a play a soccer match with some people of the town. The soccer matches, take place, in a soccer field, which is located on a small mount that is about five minutes from the center of the town.

After the soccer match, I stayed with a group of friends talking until around seven o clock. Then, my friends told me they were going to the local canteen. I refused to go and drink, I was tired and wanted to get a bath and sleep.

So, I left the field, and started to walk back home. There was a crescent moon high up on the night. I had made like a hundred meters from the field. I was in the middle of the road, in the middle of the mount when a cool breeze, made me shiver with cold, this breeze chilled my bones.

Then something made me turn around, as if the wind called my name. Then I saw a big figure it had the shape of a boar, this thing had red eyes and then it cried. What I heard pierced my soul; this cry had the mixture of the crying of a woman and the crying of a pig. It is the most horrible thing I have heard in my life.

I started to run as fast as my feet allowed me. I rolled, and fractured a finger from the fall. As soon as I reached the town, this beast disappeared in a kind of fog like smoke, and those red eyes, disappeared in the dark.

The strangest of all things is that none of the people in that town have ever seen that beast. I wasn't drunk, I was completely sane.

The night I was leaving Puerto Cayo, I saw that on the road which connected the highway with the town, there was a black-cloaked figure with red eyes staring at me. I saw the figure vanish with the wind when I was about a mile away.

My Niece's Possession

My story takes place in Guayaquil, Ecuador (I'm from there)... I was spending part of my summer there, about the second week I was there visiting my family, when things started to happened. One night my niece just started feeling sick and we took her to the doctor but the doc said that she just had a cold. But we didn't think so, we knew something else was going on, but we didn't know what it was...

At that night around 11:00 pm we heard my sister screaming and saying to let her go, when we got to the room, we saw someone holding her from behind and I saw my niece turning into some purple green color and she had a really low pulse. My sister started praying but then something else happened, our bathroom door opened and a man walked out from there and said it'll be over soon... My grandmother went to the bathroom and she saw bones, like dead person bones and she took it outside the house and then everything went calm again. Everyone felt comfortable in the house, but I didn't because I still did felt scared. Even after the second time I went there, I still felt scared... And this shiat really happened and I was only 14 years old.

If you want to find out, just let me know probably if you can afford to travel all the way over there, you can come by my place over there and find out for your self, beside my house is not the only haunted one in my neighborhood.

La Ciniega

La Cienega" is a Spaniard hacienda built on the province of Cotopaxi-Ecuador. Two hundred years ago this hacienda served as home of Spaniard conquerors, they had thousands of indigenous people working on huge fields.

These haciendas were the heart of the economics in that time. Now, this hacienda is a touristic site, because is a building which has history. This hacienda has not been remodeled or modified it has been kept the same way as it was two hundred years ago. The hacienda works as an inn, and has the name of "la cienega".

It was late October; I went to the cienega to spend a weekend outside the city. My younger sister and brother were scared because they knew this place was supposed to be haunted.

There is a legend which says, that the Africans and indigenous people who worked on this hacienda suffered everyday, they were slaves, and working schedules were so harsh, most of the slaves died in the middle of the task. And their bodies were buried in the fields.

It was Saturday in the night, after we at dinner in the hacienda restaurant, my parents went ahead to their room with my sister. Five minutes later, I went with my brother. As we were walking through a hallway, my brother just fell to the ground, he said he felt something grasping his foot.

There was no one, and there were no doors on that hallway, from which, a prankster could play a joke. I felt cold, and seen. I continued to walk very fast to our room. That midnight my brother woke up screaming because he said that he felt that someone was pulling his feet. I calmed him for a couple of minutes, and took him to my parent's room. I returned to my room.

I went to the bathroom to pick up a bottle of water because I was thirsty, when I stared at the mirror. At my side I saw a face, the face was ugly and seemed to be rotting, and I simply fainted. I woke up at nine o clock. I checked my arms and they had scratches, as like those of a cat, but instead, these were only two lines in each arm. I was freaked out.

That next day I talked to a staff member and told him of what happened the other night. For my surprise, he simply told me that these kinds of experiences are weird. Although, that hacienda has a certain reputation of haunted.

A week later, I learned that this place gets its name "la cienega" from the translation from the Spanish, what means is "the swamp" because the Spaniards not only buried corpses on the ground, but mainly on a nearby swamp, which is about a five miles from the main house (where the inn works). And local people say that the spirits which inhabit the hacienda are enraged spirits who seek vengeance from their cruel masters.