The Goblin of the Dripping Waterfall

In the small village of La Boquita (The “Little Mouth”) in the district of San Pedro de Zacapa there ran a crystal clear river. The brook tumbled from the sides of small hills to form a small pool and the women of the community would often bathe there.

But according the elders of La Boquita, a small man about one meter high would often appear near the pool, enamored with the bathing women and played handfuls of annoying pranks on them. He would wear bright colored gaudy clothes and a large wide-winged hat and during the night the neighbors could hear sweet well-played guitar music drift amongst the songs of birds, the cascading water and the croaking of frogs.

Eventually no one would go to bathe in the pool because word got around of all the mischief that the goblin had been up to in the area.

A teacher from the nearby school smiled at the stories his humble neighbors told. One Monday morning after finishing his work he made his way to the pool convinced that all he had heard was the product of a fertile imagination and that there must be a scientific explanation for these natural phenomena from which these incredible and supernatural stories had been pieced together. However, when he arrived at the pool he saw a hat adorned with multicolored ribbons floating in the water, then he heard a whistle ahead of him and there—in a cave which was barely visible behind the waterfall--he saw the little man gesturing with his hands.

The teacher of our story fled at top speed and didn’t stop running until he reached the safety of his own house.

But not long after the river began to run dry. The inhabitants didn’t know what to do and asked for help among the community of Zacapa but the people smiled at the astonishing stories of the villagers.

There soon arrived a priest from the nearby city of Santa Bárbara who had heard of these strange tales. He said to them with a stern tone:
“Without doubt this goblin whom deceives no one is a form of evil. From the evil that inside him comes the answer you are looking for far from the remoteness of God. Tomorrow at midday we shall all go to the waterfall praying with our hearts, singing to our saints, to the Virgin and the lord our father. In front of the procession we will carry crosses and remember the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ during his life on Earth”.

And so it went. Insanely fired up with religious fervor, devotedly elevated by their prayers to the Creator of the Universe and the redemption of the sinners they returned to their homes. The river began to run and they never heard from the goblin again.