The Tue Tue and the quintrala

Summer 2003


Patric Bastias


The legends exist for a reason and in my country exist a couple of these things sometimes scare the people or are simply unbelievable but let me ask something: can legends come true?  Or is just a fiction a long time ago just for fun?
   The legend is a story about monsters or old fights in the past mostly in the beginning of the countries sometimes to scare the children for gave to them a lesson that they doesn't have to do something because it is bad or to protect gold coffers in some special place.  In my particular case I know two very commons legends, The Quintrala and the Tue Tue.
   The story is told that a very powerful a big bird flew the skies searching for possible victims to attack, and most of the time appear in the night.  If somebody called the bird's name three times in the road, wait for him, because he's going to appear at your home at night, depending on how long you call the name and how many times.  If you hear a scream like an eagle start praying for you life because the black bird is coming to you and he's going to taking revenge taking you and going nowhere with you.
   Nowadays, people don't know if this legend is true, but the kids believe that and the people in the farms said they saw a big black bird with something in his claws and they thought it was a human who called them.  Nobody know's where the bird takes the people and where he drops the people, or if he just eats the body to not give clues.
   In the quintal story, people from the south of my country said a very beautiful woman appears in the bottom of the sea when the big ships go to fish, and she calls the sailors to come with her.  She is on the rocks close to the bay, and when the ships start fishing she appears and calls the people inside the ship and seduces the men.  When one man goes with her, she takes him to the bottom of the sea and chokes him because he can't breathe.  People who know the legend and saw her said she is very beautiful and attractive, but when she takes her victim she changes her face to a old and ugly woman and they explain that's because she was beautiful a long time ago, but with the time she lost her beautiful face, and the legend said if she take a beautiful sailor woman to go with her to the bottom of the sea, the quintal is going to recover her beautiful face and she's going to break her and bad which.
   I think the legends are good for a scary night with a friend who can tell you very scary stories, but we have to know the legends in my opinion are not true; the only thing that I believe is in God and nothing else, it depends not he person, but for me I don't believe that.