Legends of Vilar de Santos: the Mariquiña, Santa Marta and the St John’s snake

Vilar de Santos preserves legends collected mainly in Laioso, Castelaos, Casas da Veiga and Saa. The most famous, according to Adalid, is that of the Mariquiña ^[1].

The legend of the Mariquiña (Monte das Cantariñas, Laioso)

A girl taking the livestock to the hill met a moura weaving on a boulder or combing her hair with a golden comb. The moura asked her to delouse (or comb) her and to give her milk. In exchange she filled her kerchief with gold coins, on condition that she did not look at them until she got home and told nothing. Under her mother’s insistence, the girl confessed. One day she did not return from the hill and, when her mother went looking, she heard: "a Mariquiña por lengoreteira, está na miña barriga con pan e manteiga" (the Mariquiña, for being a gossip, is in my belly with bread and butter) ^[1]. It has the same structure as the man-eating mouras of Os Blancos and Sandiás, which can be read in Moors of A Limia. Near Saa there is also a "Peneda da Moura" ^[1].

Santa Marta and the serpent of Castelaos

In Castelaos there is a chapel of Santa Marta. It is said that the saint freed the village from a great serpent that terrorised it, and for that reason the place bears her name and a chapel in her honour ^[1].

The apparition of St John at Laioso

At the chapel of San Xoán, in Laioso, tradition says the saint appeared on a boulder and that is why the chapel was built there ^[1].

The snake with the jingle

From the spring on the Laioso hill comes a snake with a jingle or bell. If someone is able to take it from it before twelve without being bitten, the snake turns into a young woman. It parallels the snake of the Fonte da Cruz at Cardeita, in Sandiás ^[1][2].

The horse of the Casas da Veiga stream

Some young men returning from visiting some girls found a horse and mounted it to cross a stream. In the middle of the water the animal vanished and left them soaked, just like the devil’s horse of Porqueira ^[1].

The gold beam of Saa

In Saa, now an abandoned village, the legend of the gold beam and the tar beam was also told ^[1].

The Blood Man and the Blood Car

In Castelaos, the elders scared children with the Blood Man, who could carry them off. The "Blood Car" served the same purpose when few vehicles still passed ^[1].

Links

• Legends of A Limia
• Vilar de Santos
• Moors of A Limia

Sources

1. Rafael José Adalid Rodríguez, «Contos, lendas e mitos da auga na Limia e pequenas achegas», Revista Galicia Encantada 16 (2020). https://galiciaencantada.com/lenda.asp?cat=11&id=2886
2. «A Fonte da Cruz de Cardeita», Xavier Feixoo, Galicia Encantada. https://galiciaencantada.com/lenda.asp?cat=4&id=308