Lucia's Earliest Memory-El Viejo

(One day I came home from school and asked my mother, Lucia, why she never told us about "El Viejo" or "La Llorona". The girls from school had told me about them, and I felt left out. Mom said it was something she wanted us to never learn because those stories traumatized her as a child and she did not want us to feel what she felt.)

Here is her story:
When she was a little girl her mother, Maria, had told her if she misbehaved or refused to sleep when it was bedtime, something bad would happen to her. She told her that "El Viejo" would come, get her and take her away. She wondered, "Como sera 'El Viejo' que me quiere agara?"

Her fears took over and she found herself very fearful of this man called 'El Viejo'. One day while she was out walking, she came across a strange looking man riding a horse. He was a man from India. He sat upon his horse with a blank expression on his face. He had a turban on his head with a little ball on his forehead right above and between his eyes. She saw him and ran the entire way home.

Once inside her home, she told her mother she had seen "El Viejo" down the street riding upon a horse. She was very frightened he was coming for her to take her away. This is what she told her mother, "El Viejo, El Viejo, lo mire!" Her mother's reply was, "Andale, te encansa El Viejo y te agara."