Beginning in the seventeenth century, townsfolk and rural dwellers in the remote Spanish colonial city of Santa Fe maintained a provocative interest in mysterious and miraculous visions. This preoccupation with the afterlife, occult forces and unearthly beings existing outside the natural world led to early witch trials, stories about saintly apparitions and strange encounters with spirits and haunted places. New Mexican author Ray John de Arag�n explores the time-honored tradition of frightening folklore in the Land of Enchantment in this intriguing collection of tales that crosses cultures in the dark corners of the southwestern night.

"Discover the haunted mesas, the eerie, bloodthirsty canyons, and the scorching wastelands that are beyond the freeways, away from the cities in surreal New Mexico"--Cover

New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The fame the region gained from artist Georgia O'Keefe, writers Lew Wallace and D.H. Lawrence and pistolero Billy the Kid has made New Mexico an international tourist destination. But the Spanish annals also have enriched the Land of Enchantment with the factual stories of a superhero knight, the greatest queen in history, a saintly gent whose coffin periodically rises from the depths of the earth and a mysterious ancient map. Join author Ray John de Aragón as he reveals hidden treasure full of suspense and intrigue.

Beginning in the seventeenth century, townsfolk and rural dwellers in the remote Spanish colonial city of Santa Fe maintained a provocative interest in mysterious and miraculous visions. This preoccupation with the afterlife, occult forces and unearthly beings existing outside the natural world led to early witch trials, stories about saintly apparitions and strange encounters with spirits and haunted places. New Mexican author Ray John de Aragon explores the time-honored tradition of frightening folklore in the Land of Enchantment in this intriguing collection of tales that crosses cultures in the dark corners of the southwestern night."

This useful guidebook surveys more than eighty ghost towns, grouped by geographic area. First published in 1981 and now available only from the University of New Mexico Press, it has been praised in particular for its instructions on how to reach even the most obscure sites.

The "cuentos" or tales of this bilingual collection evoke the rich tradition of the early Spanish settlers and their descendants, relating the magic and events of everyday life in Colorado and the Hispanic villages of New Mexico.

These twenty-five New Mexico legends and folktales, in English and regional Spanish, relate to the supernatural and deliver the truths and moral messages of centuries-old folktales told around the world.