Enchanted Legends and Lore of New Mexico

Book excerpt: Beginning in the seventeenth century, townsfolk and rural dwellers in the remote Spanish colonial city of Santa Fe maintained a provocative interest in mysterious and miraculous visions. This preoccupation with the afterlife, occult forces and unearthly beings existing outside the natural world led to early witch trials, stories about saintly apparitions and strange encounters with spirits and haunted places. New Mexican author Ray John de Arag�n explores the time-honored tradition of frightening folklore in the Land of Enchantment in this intriguing collection of tales that crosses cultures in the dark corners of the southwestern night.