This legend originates from the Aztecs, who first named the beast the Segua, derived from Sihua, or woman in their Nahuatl tongue. This myth lives beyond that ancient Central American empire…

The year was 1821. Ignacio rode into town on his horse as he did every weekend to drink the local liquor, guaro, and try to charm beautiful women into accompanying him for a passionate encounter nearby. As usual, he drank too much and stumbled out into the night to mount his horse for the short journey home…to his wife and children.

This night was different though. There was no sign of the moon, but the night’s sky was full of brightly shining stars. Ignacio mounted his horse and began riding from Cartago, to the outskirts of town where he lived. Each trip would take him past the same open pasture and its small pond. This night however, as he approached near the pond, he saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen sitting near the water’s edge, gazing up at the stars. She had pale, white skin like a porcelain doll and big, jet black eyes, with her long undulating hair cascading down her back.

Even with all the guaro Ignacio had drunk that night, he could barely work up the courage to approach the woman, but her beauty was irresistible. She told Ignacio that she was restless that night and could not sleep and had risen from her bed to wander beneath the stars until she found this resting spot — a smooth rock near the pond.

Sensing an opportunity, Ignacio asked the woman if she would accompany him to a quiet spot. Upon her agreeing, he stretched out his hand to pull her into the saddle behind him. As they rode off, excited from the expectation of being alone with this beautiful woman, Ignacio pulled out two cigarettes from his shirt pocket and turned to offer one to the beautiful maiden riding behind him. A piercing, horrified scream exploded from Ignacio’s mouth. The body of the beautiful maiden was the same, but atop her neck sat a hideous horse’s head with bulging, bloodshot eyes, stained, yellow teeth and flaring nostrils. Ignacio lept from his horse and ran as fast as his legs could carry him — as if the Devil himself were chasing him. From that day on, he sat in his house as still as a stone statue for weeks and never drank, nor tempted the virtue of a maiden again!

This myth is said to have taken place in Cartago, the oldest Spanish colonial city and the first capital of Costa Rica, where there lived a beautiful Cartaginese of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent. She had white skin, jet black eyes and long silky hair. She fell in love with a Spanish officer to whom she lost her virtue and when he left her, she went insane from a broken heart. A curse fell upon her. Turning her into “La Cegua” — doomed to wander for eternity in a hideous form, extracting her revenge upon straying men in the streets and roads around the city.

This Costa Rican legend of La Cegua was clearly intended to discourage inappropriate behavior from men who might be tempted to drink too much and womanize, and encourage them instead to remain faithful to their wives and families. There is also a lesson for women too — to hold onto their virtue or be cursed with the same fate as the maiden.

The myth of La Cegua also known as La Segua or La Siguenaba throughout Mexico and other Central American countries with slight variations. La Segua is cursed after an affair with the son of the god, Tlaluc, with whom she had a baby boy. She constantly leaves the baby to rendezvous with her lover and is thus punished.

In Nicaragua, the tale turns the maiden into a witch, who lives in the woods, dressed in a corn leaf dress with long, black hair covering her face and plantain leaves covering her teeth, making her voice raspy. She has superhuman powers — flying at high speeds and gravitating above the ground. She tortures her victims by unleashing such horrible words that her victims go immediately insane. The only way to escape the fate is to carry mustard seeds — which she will stop to pick up — giving the offending man a chance to flee back to the safety of his wife and family.