The Ghost of the Bride Left at the Altar

 

A Ghostly Legend of San Miguel de Allende

In the neighbourhood of San Rafael there is an old house which is known to be inhabited and yet you rarely ever see anybody going in or coming out of the single wooden door, which has needed a good sanding, varnishing and painting, or at least a brush of linseed oil for years. The house in question is generally speaking not in such a bad state, but it could be a lot better if it were just given a little attention. When people go by the house, they never fail to notice that there is one curtainless closed window. Only on the rarest of occasions is it left open. When it is open, people say that this is a sign that there is going to be an apparition.

Before anything happens, a cold wind blows down the street, a small whirlwind that stirs up dust. Then, if whoever is walking by looks into the window, they will see a woman sitting inside a room, a woman dressed as a bride.

Who is she? Since when has she been there? No one knows, but what they do know is  this is the ghost of a young woman who was jilted at the altar and left alone in all her bridal finery. The groom never appeared at the church and there was nothing left for the poor young woman and her family to do but go sadly home again. Stricken with disappointment, the bride sat down in a rocking chair by the window, hoping that the groom would come for her. So deep was her distress, that she never said another word. The years went by and the unhappy woman lived and died on that same rocking chair, immersed in her grief, and never again having heard a word from her fiancé. She died of love for him and of resentment for  his dreadful behaviour.

So many years have passed since that unfortunate event that no one even remembers the name of the bride or the groom or the exact date when she was left standing alone at the altar of who knows which church. Nor do we know how long she has been sitting there by the window, ruminating on her great misfortune. The saying goes that, occasionally, when there is a gust of wind that turns into a cold whirlwind, even if on the hottest of days,  whoever looks into that open window will see that woman sitting there with her lost gaze, staring into nothingness forever.

Find more folk stories of San Miguel in this bilingual book available in Amazon on paper back, hardcover and Kindle: Historias y leyendas de San Miguel de Allende / Stories and Legends of San Miguel de Allende.

Historias y leyendas de San Miguel de Allende

 

Historias y leyendas de San Miguel de Allende Por Homero Adame – Edición bilingüe español/inglés

San Miguel de Allende guarda relatos que se transmiten de generación en generación: historias que entretienen, conmueven y preservan la memoria colectiva; leyendas que explican lo inexplicable y conectan con lo sagrado, lo mítico y lo sobrenatural.

En esta obra bilingüe, Homero Adame —cronista y narrador de la tradición oral mexicana— presenta una selección de relatos escuchados en plazas, patios y callejones de esta ciudad Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Algunas historias son conocidas, otras apenas susurradas, pero todas revelan el alma cultural de San Miguel.

Con sensibilidad y conocimiento, el autor distingue entre story y legend, entre narración libre y mito fundacional, y ofrece versiones que resuenan más allá de lo local, encontrando ecos universales en otras regiones de México y del mundo.

Este libro es ideal para lectores que desean conocer San Miguel desde una perspectiva íntima y profunda, y para quienes valoran la riqueza de la tradición oral como patrimonio vivo. Disponible en español e inglés, es también una invitación a contar, compartir y reinventar nuestras propias historias.

 

Stories and Legends of San Miguel de Allende By Homero Adame – Bilingual Edition (Spanish/English)

San Miguel de Allende is a city steeped in memory, where stories and legends echo through plazas, alleyways, and generations. In this bilingual collection, Homero Adame—renowned chronicler of Mexican oral tradition—offers a selection of tales gathered from local voices, retold in his own style and translated into English for a broader audience.

These narratives range from heartfelt stories to mysterious legends, each rooted in the cultural identity of San Miguel and shaped by the imagination of its people. Adame explores the difference between story and legend, showing how both forms preserve history, explain the inexplicable, and connect us to our past.

Some tales are well known, others rarely heard, but all reflect the universal themes of love, betrayal, mystery, and fate. Whether based on real events or shaped by myth, they invite readers to experience San Miguel through its living heritage.

Perfect for readers interested in Mexican culture, folklore, and bilingual storytelling, this book is an invitation to listen, to share, and to keep the oral tradition alive.

Disponible en Amazon / Available in Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0FSJ5R4DS

Are there any tunnels in San Miguel de Allende?

Tunnels

 

I lived at that house and as children we used to have fun getting up to mischief there. I remember that the toilets were made of long planks with several holes over deep pits and we used to throw lighted matches or burning paper down to see the arches. There are arches down there, I don’t know if they might be part of some tunnel or some cellar. If they didn’t fill up the pits with rubble when they did the renovations, because throwing rubble down the pits is what they usually do in the houses in the town centre, the arches must still be there.

And opposite, in the Chapel of the Third Order, I remember that there used to be a very big, wooden door and it had a ring to pull it open and that was where you could go down into a tunnel or most probably it was a cellar; I don’t remember very well because I was very little, I was an altar boy and we used to go down there just to be naughty. But now that you mention it, and relating it to the arches that we could see under the toilets, it could be, why not, that there is a tunnel which goes from the Chapel of the Third Order to this house, now the Casa Europa, with one branching off to the chapel above, the Calvary, another more important one going down to the parish church and that’s how the tunnels might be interconnected. But I think that the one at the Chapel of the Third order was blocked many years ago.

Samuel Jurado 

About the tunnels… No one has ever told me that they have seen them, but they have shown me photographs. They have found a lot of arches and because of these arches, a lot of people believe that there is one tunnel which crosses San Miguel from north to south and another from east to west and that they cross at some point. I am very sceptical about the tunnels myself, and I think there may well be some in San Miguel, but not everywhere people say they are. For example, here in what is now the Casa Europa, if there are perhaps some arches underneath, I think it is more likely to do with the underground streams of water that flow down from El Chorro and in the earliest plans of the city, no doubt these arches were built to provide some reinforcement, while at the same time respecting the natural path of the now underground streams and the old houses that have this kind of support must have arches because these are a very good architectural element for providing support.

During some renovations that were carried out in this house, they must have taken advantage of the shafts between the supporting arches to build latrines. You can see the same thing further down the street in Licenciado Enrique Fernandez Martinez’s house, where there are also arches underneath the house, which I believe are not tunnels, but they give support because of the underwater streams. Even further down, opposite the Aldama Cinema, where the Chamber of Commerce used to be for many years, there’s another one, just the same. So if we see it as an almost straight line, these three houses are situated over the bed of a single underground stream.

Luis Felipe Rodriguez

 

I remember that they used to say that many years ago, when they were remodelling this house to house the government offices, at the back they knocked down some old walls and built some new ones because they made some kind of little offices with toilets and they did this on a second floor, which didn’t use to exist. So when they were doing this work, they found some foundations that they had to remove and when they were removing them, some pieces fell a very long way downwards. The workmen wanted to look down but it seems that they couldn’t see the bottom. Then they said that one Sunday, one of these men brought some very long cables or ropes and he and a friend of his went down with lamps because they were looking for a treasure. Then they said that they found some skeletons down there because it was like a dungeon and there were skeletons there. And they walked as far as they could along the tunnel, till they could not go any further, It must be true because not many years ago, outside the house in the road where Correo Street meets Corregidora Street, the rains made a kind of gully there because part of this tunnel, which comes from the parish church and goes under the back part of the house, must have fallen down although it seems that the dungeon is more towards the front, at the San Francisco Street entrance.

I don’t know if they got any treasure out or what they did with the skeletons or whose they might have been or if it’s even true at all, what I am telling you that they used to say, but this is what they used to tell us about when they were doing this remodelling work which was back in about 1975, more or less.

                                                                                                       Ignacio Abundis

Notes:

1. These stories were published in the book Casa Europa Mexico. The history of the house as recalled by residentes of San Miguel de Allende. The book was published in four languages: Spanish, English, German and French.

2. Photograph by Homero Adame.

3. The book is available in San Miguel at the Casa Europa, and also it can be purshased through Amazon, both in printerd version or electronic. Just follow this link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D5R22GMN

En Amazon puedes encontrar más historias y leyendas sanmiguelenses. 

Historias y leyendas de San Miguel de Allende: Stories and Legends of San Miguel de Allende.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FSJ5R4DS