In this contemporary Zarzuela (musical drama), La Llorona/The Weeping Woman, composer Hector Armienta, tells us how it all began:

Mexico at the turn of the century. A young Xochil Indian girl fell desperately in love with a man of Spanish lineage, and the great Xochil river has never forgiven her. Twenty years later she is married, and now the river will take its revenge upon her. Her husband will betray her, she will go mad, and the river will torment her until she sacrifices her only child, Sara. She will forever weep.