Two more legends of the Guaraní country of the Misiones and the great rivers, collected in that country by Juan Bautista Ambrosetti for his "Supersticiones y leyendas" (Buenos Aires: La Cultura Argentina, 1917), and heard here in a fresh English translation made for this programme.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
On the Alto Uruguay, north of the ruined Jesuit reduction of San Javier, a palm-crowned hill carries a poor wooden chapel: the Cerro del Monje, the Monk's Hill, where a miraculous spring rose in the hole dug for a cross, where the sick come in pilgrimage — above all in Holy Week — and where every bride leaves her wedding dress upon the saint, one dress over another, so that happiness will not abandon her new home. Then, near Goya, the Isla del Diablo, the Devil's Island: the phantom island that wandered the river by night, full of infernal spirits, until a missionary friar blessed it still — and which afterwards served as a hiding place for bandits a little worse than all its spirits.
Juan B. Ambrosetti (1865–1917), "Supersticiones y leyendas" (1917) — public domain. These are Guaraní and Misiones legends from that book, billed by their people and their collector — not a survey of the whole of Paraguay. Of Ambrosetti's Misiones place legends, five were built in Part 2 and these two complete the passed bench; the remaining items of his Misiones chapters stand set aside under the shelf's content register, one Oliveira Cézar legend remains held for a ruling, and the full register is kept with the shelf's canon.
Narrated by Violetta. Music: opening and closing theme, "Convergence at Dusk".
Chapters:
01:15 El Cerro del Monje — The Monk's Hill
05:21 La Isla del Diablo — The Devil's Island
Guaraní folk tales · Paraguay folk tales · Guaraní legends · South American folk tales · Juan Bautista Ambrosetti · world folk tales · free audiobook
