Uncle Saín

Tío Saín is the character of a legend extended by Cartagena and the hamlet of Marchena (Lorca), in the Region of Murcia (Spain) and bordering areas. He was a terrible type, characterized as a scare of children, with which they frightened the little ones so that they went away to sleep.

The myth

The myth of "Tío Saín" relates that he was a real character. And that until a few years ago it was seen embedded under a bacho hat, black and greasy, frayed felt. Those who claimed to have seen his face, claimed that he had a grim look.

It was rumored that he lived in a chamizo, in the heart of the Sierra de la Almenara, south of Cotes. And when he descended to the plains of the Alporchones, he was at all times distant and lonely, absorbed in ancestral thoughts. He never had aparcero, as was customary in the place. He always used shortcuts and vericuetos in his raids. Nor was any man or woman known to him.

The children told them that Uncle Saín used to take them to take the blood and throw them to the cistern, if they, when it is time to go to bed, began to make the slips. On the nights of rain and blizzard, he was present at the slightest noise. The darkness of the children's nights was impregnated by Uncle Saín's obsessive shadow.

The sound of the wind and the howling of the dogs, echoed from mountain to mountain by echo, carried the bloodthirsty scent to the child's imagination, on long winter nights. Some ventured to think that there was something between Uncle Saín and a certain event that took place, back in the years of the war, in the surroundings of the Alporchones, between a pair of carabineros and an 'alijero' that passed products of contraband from the coast to the Guadalentín plain, bypassing the surveillance posts, through the mountains.

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