Legend of the witches of Xaltocan in Xochimilco

According to the myth there is a creature that takes the form of a fireball and during the early morning always travels the chinampas, jumping from tree to tree, or the hills of Xochitepec and Santiago Tepalcatlalpan, near the sports center, looking for babies to suck their blood.

Natives of the neighbour of the Asunción that long ago, when the roads still did not exist, in a month of June, during the early morning, Mrs. Felipa Sánchez Aguilar, neighbour of the place, and her family went to the festival of San Pablo by the course of the dam and San Lorenzo Atemoaya when they heard the mournful cry of a woman, but, as they knew that in those places they frightened the souls of those who had died in the Revolution, they continued on their way.

However, the sobs were so insistent and painful that they decided to look through the bushes to find the woman crying, but they did not find her, until dawn they realized that the lament came from the top of the trees, where they saw a female figure who asked, out of charity, to get her down from there.

The men climbed up to get the woman down, who, to her surprise, had no calves or feet and who, in addition, had in her hands a small pot full of blood, a brazier and a broom made of cane sticks.

When he put her on the ground, the woman crawled and asked them to take her to her house, but when she noticed that she was engaged in witchcraft, scared, they decided to take her to the municipal presidency, which at the time was chaired by the prefect Migonia. .

When he arrived with the political prefect of Xochimilco, he asked the witch what she was doing in those directions, and she replied that she was sucking the blood of newborn babies and that she came from a town in Morelos, but that the dawn had won her over and that was why the power to fly had run out and she had been stranded on top of the trees.

After this confession, the witch begged for her legs that were in the kitchen of her house; The men of the village went to the woman's house, where they were attended by a man who said he was her husband and who was told that her mistress was being detained and that they were coming to pick up her lower extremities.

At this confession, the man was amazed and allowed visitors to go to the kitchen, where they found their legs placed in a cross between the ashes of Tlecuil (brazier); the witch had said that please do not remove the ashes from the stumps of their limbs and carefully wrap them in a blanket to take them away.

Accompanied by the husband, the brave men arrived before the prefect and, with amazement, saw how the witch removed the ashes that had the stumps of her legs and then joined them to her thighs.

The prefect asked the man if he knew what his wife was doing, but he said no and all he knew was that he always fell into a deep sleep at night.

After this, the prefect showed him the pot with blood, and the only thing the man said was: 'ah! Rightfully, I often had to eat moronga ', but I did not know where the blood came from, to which Migonia replied:' Well, now, my dear sir, you know where the blood comes from. That night, the witch was released, because there was no crime to pursue and she had to flee at night with her husband because by this time the people of Xochimilco knew what she was doing and wanted to burn her.