This award-winning text on New Mexico folklore traditions is now available in a shorter edition.

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.

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.

Guadalupe (Tia Lupe) Martinez of Cordova and Guadalupe (Lupita) Baca de Gallegos of Las Vegas were interviewed and their folktales collected in the late 1930s by WPA Writers' Project workers Lorin W. Brown and Bright Lynn. Includes biography of Tia Lupe, 5 of her legends; biography of Lupita, 17 magic tales, her granddaughter, Elba C. de Baca's recollections of her; 1940s Farm Security Administration photos of folk art and services in adobe church at Las Trampas. UNM folklorist Weigle has fully annotated these compelling narratives and life stories. The New Deal and Folk Culture Series.A welcome contribution and real service to Hispanic folklore studies.... Of interest to a variety of readers.... a tantalizing glimpse into other lives and other times. -- Candace Slater, Journal of American Folklore

New Mexico’s twin traditions of the scientific and the supernatural meet for the first time in this long-overdue book by a journalist known for investigating the unexplained. Strange tales of ghosts, monsters, miracles, lost treasure, UFOs, and much more can be found not far from the birthplace of the atomic bomb. Huge radio astronomy dishes search desert skies for alien life, and the world’s first spaceport can be found in this enchanted land; in many ways New Mexico truly is a portal to other worlds. Mysterious New Mexico is the first book to apply scientific investigation methods to explain some of New Mexico’s most bizarre lore and legends. Using folklore, sociology, history, psychology, and forensic science—as well as good old-fashioned detective work—Radford reveals the truths and myths behind New Mexico’s greatest mysteries.

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.