| El Silbón | |
|---|---|
 Effigy of The Silbón in the theme park la Venezuela de Antier With CC BY-SA 3.0 License. | |
|
Real Names |
The Silbón |
|
First Appearance |
Los Llanos Folklore |
|
Created by |
Los Llanos Folklore |
Origin[]
‘’El Silbón’’ (The Whistler) is a legendary figure in Colombia and Venezuela, associated especially with Los Llanos region, usually described as a lost soul. The legend arose in the middle of the 19th century.
Los Llanos Version[]
In an version from Los Llanos, El Silbón was a spoiled young farm boy who demanded his father make him some venison for dinner. Upon finding out his father had never cooked any meat, El Silbón got infuriated, and killed his father brutally before ripping out his father's entrails, and then cooking them up. He gruesomely took his father's cooked entrails to his mother, and they ate them. But his mother found out the entrails were from her own husband, she got sick and infuriated, and cursed her son to forever have misfortune, which he so rightly deserved after this heinous and disturbing act. His grandfather discovers this and beats him like in the Venezuelan version, sending two dogs to hunt him down and kill him. After his death the boy becomes a malevolent spirit, carrying the bones of his father on his back. He is known to attack and kill those who pass by, ripping them apart and adding their bones to the sack that holds the remains of his father. The most notable difference in this version is that he does not target wrongdoers specifically and instead kills people innocent or otherwise.
Venezuelan Version[]
Once upon a time, a young man was working in his father's farm in Venezuela murdered his father (or his father-in-law) for killing his wife. The farmer's grandfather decided to exact punishment on his grandson by commanding some other farmers to brutally torture his grandson in a long painful revenge, first whipping his grandson's back and put salt to increase the pain and finally, to kill his grandson his put in a loose two monstrous black dogs who bite his ankles, while he scream and pain and fled to the jungle nearby, where his body is never to be found. Some people said that afterwards, his spirit become a damned soul, hell-bent into killing mostly drunks or adulterers he found in his way, as well as attacking and scaring any person who hear his terrifying whistle.
Colombian Version[]
The Colombian version has the same sort of backstory as the Venezuelan one, except it has drunkards being the main victims of El Silbón (mainly as a way of deterring one from the craving of alcohol). El Silbón stalks the Llano region in Colombia on rainy nights during May and June, and is often encountered by drunkards going home from the bars. The Whistler is more sympathetic than his other counterparts, as he is more of a harbinger of death than the actual cause, and he likes to attack wrongdoers (drunkards) rather than maliciously attack humanity. Regardless of the version, El Silbón wanders the countryside looking for new victims, and can be identified by his signature whistle, should someone hear the whistle close then he is far away from them, but if they hear it from a distance, then El Silbón is likely about to attack them.
Powers & Abilities[]
El Silbón likes to stop at people's doorways, unload his bag of bones, and count them one by one. If one does not listen to him, their family will die. His whistle can be interpreted as message of death, when one person hear them close is when he is far, but when the whistle is heard far, is when he is close and there is no chances of escape, save if one have a dog and his barking, a whip, and a Aji.