El Sombrerón: The Little Man with the Huge Hat Who Serenades Girls and Braids Horses
In the old lanes of Guatemala City and the cobbled towns of the highlands, the night has a dandy. El Sombrerón is a very small man—child-sized or less, the tellings agree—dressed all in black, with a thick belt of shining silver, boots that ring on the cobbles, a guitar slung at his back, and, crowning and dwarfing the whole figure, the feature that names him: an enormous black hat , broad as a cartwheel, under which his face is never quite seen. He leads a train of four mules loaded with charcoal, which he ties at midnight to the posts of the houses he intends to visit; and his visits are of two kinds, both famous. To the stables and the patios he comes as the braider : horses are found at dawn with their manes and tails woven into hundreds of tiny, perfect, maddening braids that no comb can undo—and the dogs that barked all night, and the tangled hair of sleeping girls and even of men, bear the same signature. And to the windows of certain houses he comes as the suitor : for the S...