This collection of stories based on Mayan and Guatemalan traditions appeared in 1967, the same year that Asturias was awarded the Nobel. Although the underlying myths are pre-Columbian, most of the stories here are placed in a more contemporary context, the supernatural New World elements mingling with bits of Catholic, Spanish or African tradition: you can see why Asturias is often cited as a precursor of the "Latin American Boom".

The title story has a woman trying to capture the heart of the man she wants to marry by secretly putting on the costume that he is to wear at a coming festival. She comes to grief, Narcissus-style, when she goes to a river in the moonlight to look at her reflection in the splendid costume. The stories go on to look at heroes who challenge their prescribed destiny, origin myths, and myths about creative art, finishing with "Leyenda de la campana difunta", where Catholic/capitalist order comes into direct contact with American disturbing forces in a conflict about the founding of a bell, and the whirlwind duelling dance of "Leyenda de las Matachines", which is at one level a knife-fight between two gauchos over a woman and at another a complicated pattern of identity-shifting Mayan deities.

Not my usual sort of thing, and I don't know much about the background traditions, but all very interesting, and full of complicated, intense, poetic writing. ( )

Desde que publicó sus Leyendas de Guatemala, en 1930, Miguel Ángel Asturias había venido incubando -según propia confesión- estos relatos y leyendas. Hay un hilo conductor mágico, lo popular, en los relatos de Lida Sal y los Juanes, y un hilo mítico en las leyendas. Relatos son, y leyendas, de la Guatemala de Miguel Ángel Asturias, esa Guatemala intensa y dolorosa de Juanantes y de la -campana difunta-, esa que los Matachines recorren haciendo brillar sus machetes y que Lida Sal refleja en su espejo de agua, esa que a fuerza de tallar y tallar va apareciendo en la -máscara de cristal-, esa que sube y gira con Juan Girador y sus hijos, esa que se esconde tras Girador y sus hijos, esa que se esconde tras Juan Hormiguero y las -tablillas que cantan-, esa, en fin, de Quincajú, esa de dioses y hombres, esa legendaria, la de Miguel Ángel Asturias.