Legends of Xinzo de Limia: the Lethes, Trandeiras, the Torre da Pena and the river mouras

The legends of Xinzo de Limia revolve around the Limia river, the wells and the ruins of its monasteries and towers. The best known have their own page: Antioquía and the apparition at Trandeiras ^[1][2].

The river of oblivion

The Limia river, as it passes Xinzo, is also known as the river of Oblivion or Lethes, the name the Romans gave it. The ancient pre-Roman inhabitants said that whoever crossed it forgot everything. When the Roman legions reached the comarca, word spread of the trouble they would have if they crossed it, and it is said they refused to do so, so a centurion had to muster his courage and cross first so the others would dare. Today the Festa do Esquecemento celebrates that event ^[1]. In other versions the one who crosses first is Decimus Junius Brutus himself (138 BC), who called his soldiers one by one by name from the other bank to show he had not lost his memory; the source is Livy ^[3]. See The myth of the Lethes.

The apparition of the Virgin to Xoán Folgoso

The Virgin appeared to a neighbour, Juan (Xoán) Folgoso, and asked for a temple. Another neighbour, Alonso Díaz, quarrelled with him until he had the same vision. Together they built the first chapel, origin of the monastery of Bon Xesús de Trandeiras (founded around 1523), which was a pilgrimage much visited by Portuguese ^[2]. A 16th-century manuscript about the foundation adds that before the new building people believed the mosquitoes of the plain were King Arthur’s enchanted army ^[2].

The Penedo da Moura of Trandeiras

Xesús Taboada Chivite collected at Trandeiras a tale of the moura who eats a girl; Rafael Quintía includes it among the four Galician tales of the man-eating moura, three of which are from A Limia ^[4].

The Mosteiro treasure

See Moors of A Limia: the Englishmen with the Ciprianillo whom the neighbours drove off with stones ^[5].

The Torre da Pena: the underground passage and Inés de Castro

Since the steps to the door of the Torre da Pena disappeared, people imagined it was entered through an underground passage. Another tradition says Doña Inés de Castro was born there, daughter of Pedro Fernández de Castro and Aldonza Soares de Valladares (see Inés de Castro). The tower also appears in the legend of the blacksmiths’ hammer that made the Lagoa de Antela ^[3].

The moura of the Limia pools at Lamas

At Lamas, in the pools of the Limia river, the moura would ask the boy who came near whether he wanted to go "by sieve or by strainer". With the sieve, she took him to the bottom of the river; with the strainer, she had to fetch him from the bottom of the pool, and he could escape if he reached a crossroads ^[6].

The moura of the Moreira well ("Marta, Martola")

Marta saw a beautiful woman combing her long hair beside a well and singing. Her mother did not believe her. A few days later Marta did not return and, when her mother called her at the well, a voice answered: "Marta, Martola is in my belly!". At the Moreira there is a spot where the ground never dries, and they say that is where the Moura’s well was ^[4]. (Collected in Xinzo de Limia in May 1992.)

Road to the Lamas festival ("Se Deus quere e a vaca!")

At the junction of the Baltar road, after the Limia bridge, on the way to the Santa Cruz festival at Lamas, according to the informant Pepe Macía (Xinzo de Limia, 2003), a certain Manolo answered proudly "Whether He wants or not" to María da Canella’s "it will be if God wills". A cow chased him and kept him under a small bridge until the festival was over. The next year he himself answered: "If God wills, and the cow!" ^[7].

Links

• Legends of A Limia
• Xinzo de Limia
• Moors of A Limia
• Festa do Esquecemento

Sources

1. «O río do esquecemento», texto de Jerónimo de Vicente de Vicente, Galicia Encantada. https://galiciaencantada.com/lenda.asp?cat=4&id=299
2. «Mosteiro do Bon Xesús de Trandeiras», Fronteira Esquecida Limia-Lima. https://fronteiraesquecida.eu/gl/fichas/mosteiro-do-bon-xesus-de-trandeiras/
3. «Torre da Pena», Fronteira Esquecida Limia-Lima; Tito Livio, Ab Urbe condita. https://fronteiraesquecida.eu/gl/fichas/torre-da-pena/
4. «Tres contos de mouras e mouros», As tradicións da Limia; R. Quintía Pereira, Análise estrutural e simbólica do mito da Moura (2015). https://tradicionsdalimia.es/tres-contos-de-mouras-e-mouros/
5. «O tesouro de Mosteiro da Limia», Galicia Encantada. https://galiciaencantada.com/lenda.asp?cat=2&id=318
6. Rafael José Adalid Rodríguez, «Contos, lendas e mitos da auga na Limia e pequenas achegas», Revista Galicia Encantada 16 (2020); fonte oral A. M., Lamas, 12/01/2019. ?cat=11&id=2886
7. «Tres contos», As tradicións da Limia, 04/02/2021. https://tradicionsdalimia.es/tres-contos/