As told in Venezuela and Colombia, El Silbon is a tale about a creature that has been damned to roam the Earth carrying a bag of bones.
The creature was once a little boy who lived with his parents in Venezuela. Being an only child, he was spoiled to no end by his parents. Unfortunately, this turned him into a picky and demanding brat.
After insisting on deer meat for dinner one night and becoming extremely angry when his father failed to produce it, the boy stabbed his father in the stomach, pulled out his intestines, and took them to his mother to cook.[1]
Although the mother cooked the entrails, she eventually became suspicious at the look of the meat. Realizing what the boy had done, the mother was overcome with grief and let the boy’s grandfather deal with the evil child.
The grandfather whipped the boy within an inch of his life and then rubbed chilies and lemon juice in his wounds. Then the grandfather handed the boy a bag full of his father’s bones and set a pack of dogs loose on him as the boy ran away. Just before the dogs killed the boy, the grandfather cursed him. And that was the origin of the creature known as El Silbon.
It is said that El Silbon still roams around, whistling and entering homes without anyone noticing. He puts the bag of bones on the floor and counts them inside the home. If he goes unnoticed, a member of the family in that house will die. However, if the family does notice him, the boy turns their bad fortune into good luck.
