She comes in many names and many forms. Sometimes, she is cast out by angels or cursed by the devil. She is a stranger on a lonely road. A mother clutching a lifeless infant. The subject of village scorn. The whispers of shameful gossip. The woman who carries death upon her shaking lace-webbed shoulders.
She is the White Woman.
Legends of women in white can be found all across the world. Spanning continents, cultures, and generations. Nearly every culture has a story. While names, ages, and details vary, the gist is nearly the same in each version. A woman, mad with love, finds out her beloved is unfaithful. It could be her husband or her betrothed. Sometimes it’s a queen and her king, or princess and her knight. In a fit of rage, she kills herself. More often than not, she takes someone with her, usually killing her children or husband. Because of her indiscretion, she is not barred from the afterlife, forever doomed to wander the earth. If you see a woman in a long white dress late at night, crying for help or for her loved ones, you must take heed. Do not dare approach or make eye contact. You cannot help her. You cannot escape. She is a harbinger, and she is coming for you.
How is it possible that the same story can be found in so many different cultures? In an episode of podcast his “Lore”, Aaron Mahnke poses the theory that the white woman is a symbol for grief. While our world is vast and often disjointed, there are certain universal experiences all humans must share, regardless of culture.
Pain. Love. Birth. Joy. Death.
As far back as Ancient Egypt, cultures employed professional mourners, or moirologists, whose job was to vocalize the grief of the lost loved one’s family. Mentions of professional mourners can be found in dozens of ancient texts as well as modern literature. Many parts of East Asia still employ mourners at funerals, though it’s not as common as it once was. Often these mourners were women. Whether or not they dressed in white, it’s difficult to tell. But their grief was displayed loudly and theatrically, with wailing, sobbing, the tearing of garments, and exposure of bare breasts, the sound becoming an endless white noise in the backdrop of the funerary procession.
The white woman has always been associated with death. More than that, though, she is associated with liberation. While women throughout history have been treated as lesser beings, death is the great and relentless equalizer of us all. Perhaps this is how the White Woman became so sinister in some legends. The idea of a woman reclaiming her power, fighting to be recognized as more, might be seen as dangerous or even criminal by some cultures.
Over the centuries, certain core legends have stuck with us in the White Woman mythos. The pilot of the seemingly endless show Supernatural featured a White Woman ghost named Constance.
While there is some debate over what “qualifies” a legend as a White Woman myth, one that I’ve often considered an origin of sorts is Medea, the sorceress from classic Greek mythology, made infamous by Euripides’ stage tragedy. Upon meeting Jason during his quest for the golden fleece, Medea of Colchis falls madly in love with the hero. She forsakes her entire kingdom, steals her country’s greatest treasure, and kills her own brother before fleeing across the Aegean with Jason and his crew. When they are granted asylum in Corinth, Jason abandons her and their two sons to marry the princess, leaving Medea devastated. Whether from madness or grief, Medea ignites a path of carnage, killing the king, princess, and her two sons, leaving her unfaithful husband with nothing as she rides into the sunset on her grandfather Helios’ sun chariot.
This is where her story differs. Unlike later White Woman tales, Medea gets away. She does not kill herself or her husband, but is liberated nonetheless. Obviously, Medea’s actions cannot be justified, though some accounts of the myth claim she was actually struck by Eros or Aphrodite, meaning her obsession was actually not within her control, and possibly the reason for the ensuing mental breakdown. Much like how grief often seems out of our control.
Throughout Mexico and Latin America, there is a terrifying version of the legend known as La Llorona or “The Weeping Woman”. General consensus puts her as a poor village woman named Maria who falls in love with a wealthy merchant that promises her the moon and stars, the world at large, who promises to rescue her from her pauper’s life and shower her with love like Pablo Neruda to his muse. However, Maria’s new husband turns out to be cruel and dispassionate. No matter what she does, she will never be enough for him. When he abandons her and the children, it’s too much for her to handle. She drowns the children and then herself. As penance for her crimes, she is doomed to wander the city streets, searching for her children’s souls. If she comes across a lost child at night, she will take them. It’s a tale told to children to keep them from wandering outside at night. A kind of Mexican boogeyman in some ways. And yet the deep heart of pain and loss in the story makes it stronger, more terrifying than an ordinary ghost story.
On the other side of the world, Ireland is well known for their funerals and ghosts. Their own form of hired mourners gave way to the verb “keen” (Gaelic: “to weep”) as in to “keen over” in despair. Most traditional Irish funerals played host to a keening woman. Naturally, this leads to a connection with the legendary banshee, a ghastly female spectre whose wail indicates the impending death of a loved one. Whether she is a faerie or an ancestor changing depending on the version you read, but all can agree that her cry brings devastation.
In more recent tellings, one can look to the popular horror franchise The Grudge, as well as various fantasy video games. While it is a ghost story, often told to frighten children, when you peel back the layers, you will find only raw emotion beneath. More than that, it’s a story of the power we hold over death. While we cannot prevent it, we choose how we react. Grief can drive you mad or it can make you stronger. Death is coming for us all. It’s okay to be afraid.
We all fear. We all mourn. We all weep.
K.N. Clem 
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