The Hundred Maidens and the legends of A Saínza

The tribute of the Hundred Maidens is the legend most often attached to the Moors and Christians battle of A Saínza. It is not the only one: people also speak of the Reconquista, of a miracle of the Virgin and of the ransom of captives. This page brings those explanations together. It complements the presentation of the pilgrimage, the description of the Moors and Christians battle and the page on Our Lady of Mercy.

The tribute of the Hundred Maidens

It is a very old legend, widespread across the whole Peninsula. In its best-known version, the Christian kings who succeeded Alfonso I (Aurelio, Silo and Mauregato) paid the rulers of Córdoba a tribute of one hundred maidens: fifty noble and fifty commoners ^[3]. The supposed victory of Clavijo, a battle historians consider fictional, would free the Christians from that tribute. The first written mention dates from the 13th century, in the chronicle of Jiménez de Rada, four centuries after the events it tells. That is why historians regard it as a legend ^[3]. In Galicia there are other versions, such as that of the Figueroa family, who killed with fig-tree branches the Moors who came for the maidens ^[3].

At A Saínza the legend is part of the performance. While the procession sets out, the armed Moors guard the fortress with the Christian prisoners and demand the tribute of the «hundred maidens» ^[1]. Antonio Doval Adán, in the work Galicia pueblo a pueblo, wrote that the battle «commemora el episodio del tributo de las Cien Doncellas y leyendas de rendición de cautivos» (commemorates the episode of the tribute of the Hundred Maidens and legends of the ransom of captives) ^[2].

A local victory of the Reconquista

The origin of the festival is not well known, because the Muslim presence in Galicia and northern Portugal was slight ^[1]. Some explain it as a local struggle of the Reconquista in which the people of the district defeated the Muslims. The victory was attributed to the Virgin of Mercy ^[1]. None of the sources consulted documents that battle. It is a tradition, not a historical fact.

The captives and the Order of Mercy

The other explanation comes from the very title of the Virgin of Mercy. In 1929 Jaime Solá wrote that at A Saínza, as at A Franqueira, people remembered the times when the Order of Mercy helped Christian slaves held «detrás de los muros de Argel» (behind the walls of Algiers) ^[4]. Local tradition adds a vow. The priest Manuel Alonso Dorado, who promoted the battle, entrusted himself to the Virgin of Mercy when he feared for his life outside Galicia and, in gratitude, brought the Ataque into the pilgrimage ^[1][4].

Legends of the place

No tales of mouras (enchanted Moorish women) or legends specific to A Saínza were found outside the pilgrimage. The project’s documentation work searched for «Saínza», «Rairiz» and other names of the municipality in Galicia Encantada and in web sources, without results ^[5]. The legend of A Saínza therefore lives in the battle itself. Its setting is described on the page about the castle and the oak grove.

Sources

1. Fronteira Esquecida, «Romaría da Saínza» (bibliography: Delfín Caseiro Nogueiras, A Romaría da Saínza: mouros e cristiáns, Ourense, 2003; Enrique Bande Rodríguez, Moros y Cristianos en la Sainza). https://fronteiraesquecida.eu/gl/fichas/romaria-da-sainza/
2. Antonio Doval Adán, «Rairiz de Veiga», in Galicia pueblo a pueblo (dir. Andrés Precedo Ledo), pp. 1167–1168. Digital copy in Minerva (USC). https://minerva.usc.gal/bitstreams/f7db627e-8867-4e17-b14c-f908758002ab/download
3. Wikipedia (gl), «Tributo das cen doncelas», CC BY-SA 4.0. https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tributo_das_cen_doncelas
4. Alexander de los Ríos Conde, «La romería de A Saínza en un reportaje de 1929 (Segunda Parte)», Vía Lethes, 02-10-2016 (reproduces Jaime Solá, Vida Gallega, no. 431, 20-11-1929). https://vialethes.es/romeria-sainza-1929-ii
5. Galicia Encantada, legend search engine (query for Rairiz de Veiga and A Saínza, October 2026). https://galiciaencantada.com/