The Legend of El Silbón (The Whistler)

It's been a long day at work, and the young man has barely started his journey home through the hills of Venezuela. He looks out to the sky, a light purple now, as a whole town begins to get swallowed by the darkness. Cecilia, the woman from the fruit stand, waves at him before loading up her arms with the basket of banana peels and her unsold papious. She knows he's not going to buy anything this time. She shuts the window and heads back to her house. Right behind the trees up ahead, the mechanic opened his front door on the side of the road and watch as the mosquitoes begin to circle around the light of his porch. Just around the next hill, he would see his wife waiting for him outside. She tended to worry, especially when things got dark. He was almost there when from behind him he heard it, the faded sounds of the whistler. He remembered the story the cursed man who roams the earth, the dark whistling. He hears a melody right there next to him now, and he ran. His wife saw him and signaled him to run faster, yelling hurry up. The whistler fades away as he steps up to his own porch, and then inside the house, he knew he was safe. In South America, there is a famous urban legend that has terrified children and believers for generations, the stories of a cursed man carrying something behind his back as he roams the dark streets. Here is a legend of Velzilborn, the whistler. My name is Edwin, and here's a dark memory. Ensilbon has been known to bring fear to children, but the figure itself has been intertwined with a country wide culture, just like the food and the music. In some countries, this character has even been mentioned in presidential speeches and even has a music festival named in its honor. Even though there are different versions about it, they all talk about a dark figure who roams in the night. If your art in the woods, you risk an encounter with a tall man, some saying he is between twenty to forty feet tall, his clothes old and dirty from the many thousands of kilometers he has roamed. Some say that even his physical features cannot be accurate because he usually kills all of his victims. So how would they know A man was working for his father on their farm. Long days were typical for them. He looked up from the ground to find one of the neighbors running up to him, seemingly disturbed. What is it, he asked, Someone had murdered his wife. After an argument, the man became enraged and ran to seek revenge. With the swipe of a knife, he killed the other man. Some say it had been his own father. Another tale say that it was his father in law. They tied him up and called up the other farmers to come whip him. They rubbed salt on his wounds to add more pain. His grandfather called it off and it was time to release him, but not because his punishment was over. Who is going to be surrendered to his own death? He ran off into the woods quickly, but still in a great deal of pain, before two large black dogs chased him straight to his death between the trees. His body was never found. Some people say that his spirit was cursed and down spends the rest of eternity seeking revenge on drunks and adulterers, and to be here his tune He's coming after you. Another venezuel inversion says that he was a spoiled son instead of a hard working farmer. But an eerie rendition of the story has a more sinister ending. After an altercation, a man killed his own father. The mother was terrified at the collapse of her family and then complained to her father. That's when he was tied up to a tree waved until he bled. As part of his punishment, he was given his father's remains in a sack. To face his own demons. He ran off onto the woods before two large dogs went after him and killed him. Or did they? They say that in Colombia and see bone targets, drunks, and stalks the barren regions, especially during the rainy nights in May and June. In this version, he isn't quite as evil, but rather represents death instead of revenge. Not everyone is safe. If he does claim victims, it's because they were doing something they weren't supposed to do. This legend may remind you of La Yourona or the sack Man from Latin countries, The Bubach or Lasallona from Venezuela, the story of a vengeful spirit after she was cheated on. But it's tough to find someone in Venezuela or Columbia who hasn't heard of vencied bone. With the many versions of this story that have been passed down, I definitely found my favorite, and this is one creepy tale. I'll try to tell it as I imagine it up next. He was a brat, rejecting well little food the family had to offer, and when their family was doing better, his demands got worse. His parents did not do much to remedy the situation. He only seemed to be getting worse. One day, he ordered his father to hunt for deer, and his father complied, heading out into the woods to look for one, but during that time of the year, the deer had gone a little more inland. His father returned without one. Angered, his son killed the father and cut out his liver and his heart. He then brought the eners to his mother to cook them for dinner. The mother begins to suspect that something is wrong when the meat is far too tough to be that of a deer's. Soon she finds out that the guts she had been cooking belonged to her husband. Then she lays a curse on her son forever. His grandfather tied the young man to a post and whipped them until the skin off his back was flapping like a flag away from his body. He was released, and in a bit of relief, knowing that he would now begin to heal, he looked to his grandfather for forgiveness. Instead, the grandfather gave him the remains of the young man's father in a sack, cursing him to forever carry his bones. He ran off into the woods, the two large dogs running after him, starving to finish the job. El Silbon means the whistler, and people of Los Janos say that in the summer, when the savannah of Venezuela burns from the lack of water, they can see him, they hear him. He sits among the trees, stuck in the shade, and he only wanders when it's raining. He roams to fulfills his curse, the one of vengeance, vengeance on people who have done wrong, in an attempt to correct himself for his mistakes, but the anger inside of him has not subsided. He can punish even innocent victims. He tears them to pieces and pulls out their bones for his collection, where he carries the remains of his father. The giant creature roams in the dark, whistling his deathly tune. His hat hides his face as the hunched body creeps through the darkness of the hills and streets. The tune of his whistle is said to harm those who hear him from a distance, and not if it's heard up close. Drunks on the streets have heard his melody far enough away to set them straight, and they say that on certain nights he'll pick a house to rest in. He stands by the front door as he slings a sack over him and back to the ground, and then crouches over it. He opens a sack and smiles. His collection is growing one by one. He counts the bones in the sack, laying them neatly on the ground. He puts them back and ties up the sack once more. He then steps into the darkness, forever, roaming the hills and dark streets in search of wrongdoers. Do you hear that? This episode of A Dark Memory was researched by Madelinguera and written and produced by me Edwin Covadrugaz. Do you know of a legend you want us to share? Find me over on Instagram or visit a Dark Memory dot com to send me a message For more stories, make sure to tap follow and check out the other shows Scary Story Podcast and True Scary Story. Until next time, thank you very much for listening.