The Bewitched Wagon
Long ago, an evil and greedy sorcerer lived in Izalco. He used to be a common Indian man who got tired of the extreme poverty he was born with and decided to reach a unique deal with the Black Knight. After their deal, he was renamed Evil Pedro and pretended to be a farmer daily, while scaring people at night.
On one 15th of May, after Saint Isidore the Laborer’s mass, the local priest organized the wagons’ annual blessing. The priest blessed every farmer in town, so, they could have an abundant year.
When Pedro’s time came to get his blessing, the priest almost blessed his wagon, when suddenly, he stopped and said aloud: “This wagon was already blessed by the devil himself! What are you doing here?”
Pedro pretended he did not know what he was talking about.
After a while, the priest started to spray his holy water over Pedro. For him, this was like acid. The holy water started to destroy his skin, causing several wounds. The priest also sprayed his oxen. They just knelled on the street.
Pedro tried to force his oxen to move and escape from this place, but the oxen just lay down.
The priest kept spraying more and more holy water, destroying Pedro's face and hands. Suddenly, one of the oxen stood up and kicked Pedro’s wagon strongly in the church’s opposite direction.
Pedro ran for it crazily to recover it. When Pedro was far enough, the priest cursed him because he had pretended to be a good farmer all these years. And now, he was trying to destroy the House of God.
Pedro vanished on the horizon while cursing everyone. No one saw him or his wagon again.
Many years later, he came back in a wagon, but no one knew that he was back. From that day until today, he is riding his wagon in some cities from El Salvador on Fridays at night.
People know that his wagon is close when they start listening to a deep sound in the plains, which is slowly approaching. The sound makes clearer and clearer until everyone clearly hears the screeching of the wheels that are rubbing the axles with the dryness of old grease. If anyone leaves their house, they will see the wagon that is not carried by horses, but by a ghost and followed by headless men whose heads are grass (figure 1).
Figure 1. The sorcerer in his wagon. ¹
There are thousands of stories related to this story, but tonight I’m going to tell you more about the experience of Mr. Rene. An old man who lived near Lake Güija in the northwest of El Salvador.
Mr. Rene was visiting his cousins. It was a great day for him because his salary had risen, and he wanted to tell all his family about it. He arrived almost at midnight, but he was used to walking on those dark roads, only in the light of the moon, it was the 1910s, and there wasn’t electricity in many towns.
Mr. Rene was a courageous man because he was always involved in many fights in the bars of San Salvador. He was a well-known fighter because of his right fist. Everyone in town was afraid of him.
Mr. Rene said all the time how he had defeated multiple times the Black Cadejo, the Siguanaba, the Cipitio, and many other legendary beasts of El Salvador without help at all. However, this time in midsummer he felt it was too cold and also, dark, he laughed and said: “It should be the Cadejo again. Such a silly dog.” After walking for a couple of kilometers, he reached the edge of the town. Suddenly, he started to feel a colder presence and heard some sounds that he didn’t recognize. In his mind came a thought: “It should be Mr. Cruz that is bringing the grass for his horses.” He just kept walking and didn’t care about these sounds.
After half an hour, the sound disappeared, and he needed to walk faster if he wanted to reach his cousin's place. He said: “I recall there is a cemetery behind the church. I’m going to take a shortcut.” He knew it was a good idea, but he had never taken it at night and less at this time. This was not his wisest idea. In the center of the cemetery, there was an immovable wagon. He didn’t understand what that wagon was doing there.
Suddenly, it started to move, and he recognized the sounds of those wheels! Those were the sounds that he had heard before! He felt goosebumps and didn’t know what to do or where to go. He was trapped, later he ran, but the sorcerer was already behind him, and he was collecting new souls for the devil. In his mind, he started to pray and took his rosary with him. He needed to escape because he wasn’t a bad man. He didn't know why the wagon was chasing him. He needed to find a place to spend the night.
While he was running, he saw a ravine and jumped on it. There were some pineapple plants and they tried to hide behind them. The sorcerer left his wagon and tried to find him, but he couldn’t hear that many animals crying and was scared of the beast.
Several minutes passed when the sorcerer returned to his wagon. He carefully saw that in the back of the wagon were several bodies and skulls, and as all legends said: “The sorcerer took off their heads and left their bodies on his wagon. Later, he put some grass on their necks, and the new man followed the wagon.”
Maybe it was three or four o’clock when the wagon left the cemetery. Mr. Rene was able to reach the Church and stayed there until sunrise. He didn’t stop praying that night.
Mr. Rene didn’t remember how he returned to his home because he just remembered some details about the Church. However, his wife told him he was shaking and cold when he arrived at his cousins’ house. They called him because he fainted in front of their house. He suffered a severe fever for three days. From that day, he never left his house at night alone, and it's even worse on Fridays.
¹ Leyendas Urbanas de El Salvador 2011 - 2017.
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