Charco Verde Lagoon 4
The Charco Verde Ecological Reserve is famous for the local tale of Chico Largo. As legend has it, in the 1800s a character from the community of San José del Sur, Francisco Rodríguez, also known as Chico Largo, took up certain occult customs of his indigenous ancestors, practicing witchcraft, healing and the reincarnation of people by turning them into animals.
Chico Largo practiced his craft around the lagoon, calling upon the gods or demons to change himself into a deer and thus to travel easily through the forest and eat without paying a cent.
During one of his adventures as a deer, Chico Largo forayed into an adjacent region known as El Mirador del Diablo (the Devil’s Lookout), where he was gravely wounded by hunters. Following the trail of blood, the hunters chased the deer along the path through El Mirador del Diablo to the lagoon where Chico Largo carried out his dark arts.
By morning, however, Chico Largo had reached his home. Mortally wounded, he was unable to return to his original human state. His mother Bucha, herself an expert witch and healer, could not resolve the case with all of her potions and incantations and, still half human and half deer, Chico Largo died.
Mamá Bucha kept the event a secret. Taking her son’s lifeless body in her arms, she buried him along the banks of the lagoon at the site of his rituals. Eventually, neighbors realized what had occurred, relating the hunters’ story to Chico Largo’s sudden absence.
Mamá Bucha was forced to tell the truth and, with the neighbors, decided to exhume her son’s body and give him a Christian burial. To her surprise, at the gravesite she finds only Chico Largo’s blood-stained clothes and the sheets in which he was wrapped.
To this day, the people of San José del Sur swear that the spirit of Chico Largo remains as guardian and protector over the magic place of Charco Verde. His ghost appears to people at night and persuades them to sell their souls in exchange for wealth and prosperity. When these greedy bargainers die, Chico Largo supposedly changes their souls into the cows that graze the island's fields.
Charco Verde Lagoon 4
The Charco Verde Ecological Reserve is famous for the local tale of Chico Largo. As legend has it, in the 1800s a character from the community of San José del Sur, Francisco Rodríguez, also known as Chico Largo, took up certain occult customs of his indigenous ancestors, practicing witchcraft, healing and the reincarnation of people by turning them into animals.
Chico Largo practiced his craft around the lagoon, calling upon the gods or demons to change himself into a deer and thus to travel easily through the forest and eat without paying a cent.
During one of his adventures as a deer, Chico Largo forayed into an adjacent region known as El Mirador del Diablo (the Devil’s Lookout), where he was gravely wounded by hunters. Following the trail of blood, the hunters chased the deer along the path through El Mirador del Diablo to the lagoon where Chico Largo carried out his dark arts.
By morning, however, Chico Largo had reached his home. Mortally wounded, he was unable to return to his original human state. His mother Bucha, herself an expert witch and healer, could not resolve the case with all of her potions and incantations and, still half human and half deer, Chico Largo died.
Mamá Bucha kept the event a secret. Taking her son’s lifeless body in her arms, she buried him along the banks of the lagoon at the site of his rituals. Eventually, neighbors realized what had occurred, relating the hunters’ story to Chico Largo’s sudden absence.
Mamá Bucha was forced to tell the truth and, with the neighbors, decided to exhume her son’s body and give him a Christian burial. To her surprise, at the gravesite she finds only Chico Largo’s blood-stained clothes and the sheets in which he was wrapped.
To this day, the people of San José del Sur swear that the spirit of Chico Largo remains as guardian and protector over the magic place of Charco Verde. His ghost appears to people at night and persuades them to sell their souls in exchange for wealth and prosperity. When these greedy bargainers die, Chico Largo supposedly changes their souls into the cows that graze the island's fields.