myths, legends, and beliefs on granite caves

7/27/2019 Myths, Legends, and Beliefs on Granite Caves

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Cadernos Lab. Xeolxico de LaxeCorua. 2008. Vol. 33, pp. 19 - 34

ISSN: 0213 - 4497

Myths, legends and beliefs on granite caves

COSTAS GOBERNA, J. BERNARDINO1; OTERO DACOSTA, TEREIXA1 and

LPEZ MOSQUERA, J.M.1

(1) Clube Espelolxico Maxo

Recibido: 22/9/2007 Revisado: 15/6/2008 Aceptado: 3/9/2008

Abstract

In the North of Portugal and Galiza (Spain) there exists a very varied and lively inmaterial cul-ture formed by social and cultural manifestations and beliefs. Recently, the same UNESCOrenounced to include it in the List of Goods of the Humanity Culture for its volume, varietyand not being in risk.The Galician caves have this cultural inheritance as proved by a old and numerous biblio-graphy that collected the names, rites and/or stories associated to the caves. Today, it is even

possible to check that this inheritance memory is still alive. This culture places mithologycalanimals, goods which passed from Pre-Christianity to Christianity in different forms, superna-tural races, magic beings, unreal passages, extraordinary treasures, etc., in the natural cavesThis paper presents different legends related to caves located in the Galician mountains of OPindo, O Pico Sacro, O Maxo, O Galieiro and the Portuguese mountain of Castelo da Furna.They are a reduced selection of a more complex and wide cultural reality of the mithologycalcomplex of the Galician and Portuguese culture. Also, there are many other caves that are notincluded because though we have folklore references, they need to be investigated more deep.

Key words: immaterial culture, folklore, mithology, legends


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INTRODUCTION

In this communication we are going tocentre on the cultural references, written andoral, of the different granite caves that we vis-ited during The First International Conferenceon Granite Caves.

The anthropospeleology, or the knowledgeof the immaterial culture preserved aboutthem, is very important due to the scientificvision we may have about them nowadays.We can add the cultural vision of the societythat used it related to cultural references as

well as daily uses and functions and linked toshepherding, masonry, afforestation, etc. Infact, the richness of the immaterial culture ofthis region is so assorted that it was proposedto UNESCO to be included as IntangibleCultural Heritage in 2006.

The documentation of legends is based onthe bibliography developed from the tradition-al Galician historiography, since the VI centu-ry (Lpez Pereira, X. Eduardo, 1996) and inthe oral tradition for the peasant society ofGalicia and North of Portugal.

The discussion about concepts such aspopular culture, mythology and imaginary isvery extensive and complex, but we canapproach it naming two lines of discussion,the most outstanding:

One of them maintains that they are sur-vivals from past times. This line isdeveloped from the traditional Galicianhistoriography, which identifies traces

or signs of old beliefs and rites fromCastro Culture in these stories.Nowadays, authors, such as GonzlezReboredo, say there are parallelismsbetween these stories and the old beliefs,and some of them may even go back toNeolithic (Aparicio Casado,Buenaventura, 2004).

The other one, a group of authors whodefine the cultural references to thecaves, among other landmarks whichstand out in the landscape, as popularimaginary (Llinares Garca, Mar, 1990)

and not as mythology, because they con-sider that Galician popular culture doesnot reach the formulation of a theogonyor cosmogony as it happened in theAntique Greece.

For Clube de Espeleoloxa Maxo, morethan an exciting discussion and critical studyof bibliography, contrasting opinions and real-izing the evolution of the explanation aboutthe popular imaginary throughout historiog-raphy, it is of vital importance to pick upmicro-toponymy, sayings, customs, uses andfunctions that granite caves had and have for

all the neighbours in the place, being con-scious as we are and as Mar Llinares says thatthe concept of mythology itself cannot beapplied in a strict sense to a culture, like thepopular Galician culture, because it is break-ing down.

With the aim of easily understanding thelegends related to the caves visited during theConference, we are going to explain some ofthe common characters and events that all of

them share as the enchantments, osmouros and a moura.

The Enchantments:

An enchantment, in the Galician popularimaginary, is a mysterious being, material andactive, despite his/her supernatural attributes(Rodrguez Gonzlez, Eladio, 2001). Thereare a number of enchantments, such as

mouros and moura, and all of themappear related to the custody of fantastic treas-ures that are supposed to be hidden in caves,demolished monasteries and other singularmonuments.

The legends about them are widespreadall over Galicia. There are no remains of feu-dal castles, monasteries nor other buildings,grottos or caves, castros, burial mounds, dol-mens and other prehistoric monuments, whichhave not got its own legend. The same happenswith the pools of lakes and rivers, and the stillwaters of lakes and lagoons. Whether a very

CAD. LAB. XEOL. LAXE 33 (2008)20 Costas Goberna et al.


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beautiful lady who, combing her hair with agold comb, appears where hidden treasures arekept safe and beware those who dare to look

at her or talk to her and cannot disenchant her-or a hen, partridge or other bird which withtheir breeding suddenly appear in a very denseforest or woodland, and to whom the inatten-tive person who meets them chases in vain,and the more it seems he can seize them, themore they run away or vanish to appear again,making the unwary person to chase them invain for long hours and who moans too lateabout not remembering that he was before an

enchantment which he would have been ableto disenchant just throwing a cloth or his hand-kerchief, cap or hat, not having at hand somewater, and saying: Give me your wealth: havemy poverty (Carre Aldao, Eugenio, ca. 1925).

We have the first bibliographic referencefor buried treasures in Calixtus Codex: Galiciais rich in gold and silver, and in fabrics andwild furs, and in other riches, and above all inSaracen treasures (Llinares, Mar, 1990).Generally, treasures appear as assets leftbehind by os mouros when they went away.According to Mar Llinares, this means thatthere is a mixture between the mythicalmouros and the stories of the historicalMoslem invasion, usually influenced by SaintJames the Apostle.

Os Mouros:

Mythical people with singular features and

behaviour. They live in deserted places oldruins that are said to be built by them- and inuninhabitable worlds under the water, underthe ground, inside the rocks-. This isMourindade. They are also known asEnchantments, Gentlemen and Gentile, andeven French, Vikings, Celts.

They are said to have supernatural powers.They are not visible unless they want to. Theycontrol magic, are pagans, sleep during the dayand can even eat people. They are skilled inbuilding tunnels and underground palaces.They have a lot of gold; even their oxen and

carts are golden. They themselves are enchant-ed treasures. On the contrary, their dailydomestic activities such as cattle, farming and

games, music and dancing are the same asthose in Galician peasant society. Nevertheless,from the cultural anthropology viewpoint, osMouros have been considered as the inverseimage of peasants; as the paradigm of TheOther (the non-humane) or just as the reminis-cence of old Galician settlers or those gods andbeliefs previous to the arrival of Christianity.They have parallelism in traditions such asthose of Breton Korrigans, the Scotch Pictos,

the Follets of the Catalan caves, etc..Galician Mouros are recognized to have,from in and out of Galicia, a well-rooted per-sonality and cultural importance. As a Spanishethnographer from the first half of the twenti-eth century says:

Everybody thinks Galicia is inhabited byGalician people. And up to a point they areright if they do not mean that only Galicianpeople live there. Galician people know verywell that besides them the Mouros also inhab-it their land. In fact, in Galicia there are twooverlapped people: a part lives on the surfaceof land; they are the Galician people, and theother in the subsoil, the Mouros. The formerones do not really live like us, but they areenchanted; that is, in a special state whichmodern men have lost, but that exists (Garcade Diego, Vicente, [(1953) 1999].

The first written reference about theMouros in Galicia, not named like that in that

moment, is in the Inventory of the Old Housesof the Kingdom of Galicia. This was writtenby Vasco de Aponte between 1530 and 1535.He places them in Cova da Coruja. The chron-icler tells it as a historical fact whose mainpart was played by the nobleman lvaro Prezde Moscoso seventy years ago:

This man, lvaro Prez, did not livemuch and, according to what people say,advised by a friar he went into Coruja cave tolook for a big treasure. He took with himthirty squires and labourers who were verystrong, and before them many burning torch-

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es and very big oak trunks. And in theentrance of the cave they fastened long ropeswith sticks. People were well armed. Whenthey were going into the cave they discov-ered very big birds that blow them stronglyon their faces. They walked until they arrivedat a large river, and on the other side of theriver they saw strange beautiful and verywell dressed people who were playing instru-ments and looking at big treasures. But theywere so afraid of the river that they did notdare to go across it. So, they were all inagreement to return, but the friar said: Go

on, go on, there is no trouble. And they didnot want to believe it. Then, the wind blew sohard that the torches were put out. And whenthey managed to go out, they breathed poi-soned air so they did not live more than oneyear, and afterwards the friar lost his sight(Aponte, Vasco de ([ca. 1530-1535] 1986).

Historically, the main character existed(Garca Oro, Jos, 1982) and died in 1468. Hewas the IV gentleman of the noble house ofMoscoso de Altamira in Santiago deCompostela. He was a lay nobleman with anoutstanding position in the 14th and 15th cen-turies when he clashed with the power of thearchbishop of Santiago de Compostela. Thereare two different hypotheses about whereCoruja Cave is. Some people say it is in OPico Sacro, others in Coruxo (O Foln).

A Moura

They are enchantments described as beau-tiful shining women, with a vast fortune ingold. They live inside the rocks in old placeswho nobody remembers building or, prefer-ably, in caves, rivers and fountains/springs.When they appear washing and singing by theriver they are known as Lavandeiras. TheGalician Mouras are wizards. They are almostalways shown as attractive and temptinghardworking magicians who comb their longred hair. They must not be confused with themale genre, the Mouros, with whom theyshare characteristics.

Mar Llinares quotes as the first biblio-graphical reference of a moura who keeps anenchanted treasure that appears in the papersof the beginning of the 17th century. There itcan be read a lawsuit of the priest Vzquez deOrxas against the peasants, because of thepropriety of some burial mounds where goldwas buried:

... As one of his servants called HilarioAlonso had found there a dishevelled womandressed in brown clothes and with her hairdown when it was already getting dark. He wasgoing to the mill with a fuelle (it is a measure

of capacity for solids) of grain. He had in hishand some hairs and she asked him what hethought it was better: she herself or what he hadin his hand. He answered that she was better soshe ordered him to go and dig the hillock of themegalithic chamber tomb in Segade and therehe would find a treasure for him and all his gen-eration (Llinares, Mar, 1990).

In these documents it can be also read theapparition of a hen and chicks.

They are named in different ways such asdonas, girls, women, young ladies, ladies,madams, enchantments, princesses andqueens. They are equal to fairies, xanas,anjanas, fes, korrigans, faires,fainen, fate, moirai, etc. (Cuba, X. R. &Reigosa, A. & Miranda, X. 1999).

As we shall see [Legends of Foln] it isnot strange that the Moura be described as asiren (a fish-woman) or half woman, halfsnake into which she transforms. In fact, the

ophidian worship the worship to snakes,dragons-, the litolatra-the cult to crags,rocks, stones- and the hidrolatra- the cult towater- all these are only three sides of the oldpre-Christian animation latent in a countrywhere the caves, as well as the trees, the foun-tains-springs and the stones, speak.

1.- LEGENDS OF O PINDO MOUNTAINAND CAVES

The most well-known and meaningfulbelief about O Pindo Mount is that couples



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with fertility problems that came to the stonebed usually visited it. Places where peoplewere trying to facilitate gestation and also to

make sure you will find a partner, to have asafe delivery, to manage to make mothersnurse, etc. Among the stone beds in Galiciathere is the famous one in San Guillerme, inFisterre cape. Some kilometres to the southernpart of the country, in Tui, it is the bed of SanXin, in Aloia Mount.

A thousand of things are said about whatthere is in here: that the grass grows a lotovernight; that there are innumerable medici-

nal plants and many of them unknown andthat some doctors go there to search them; thatinside there are extremely fertile ani-mals(Sarmiento, Fr. M. 1745).

In spite of having visited this place for justa few months, there is evidence of the vastrichness and intangible culture in caves thathave to be picked up and studied in O Pindo.In this way, in O Cebro Cave, according toJos Cernadas Sande, the neighbours from thisplace used it to keep sheep. Its name is due tothe number of holly trees which sprout near it.

O Forno dos Mouros Cave, according toAlonso Romero and Barreiro Barral, was aChristian hermit place in the 8th centurybecause it had a cross engraved on the left sideof the entrance. They also tell us its locationand why it is named like that.

(...) in the eastern hillside of A Moa, asmall cave, called Forno dos Mouros where itwas said the Mouros made bread. People say

that inside there were pots with coins(Alonso Romero, F. 2001).In the field, the only flat stretch of land

that it is there, in A Moa, converged all thewalled ravines. There you can find the ruins ofa building with a square plan having its wallscompletely demolished. In the northern part oftheses ruins the lining up of big stones showthe existence of another wall o small rampart(...), the small cave opened in the top side of AMoa as well as the overcrowding of materialwhich belonged to a chapel from which we donot have any written evidence, nor it was

known which kind of building it was, until wediscovered they belonged to a small sanctu-ary (Barreiro Barral, J. 1970).

The Cocho Cave is located near A Moa,A Moa crest is made up of a huge mass of

solid and compact stone, without cracks orjoints. It is a huge protuberant crag of archaicsurface, with a rounded shape. By the westernside the mountain slopes down towards Pindobeach, having a wide side without high pointswhere one can see a broad depression namedCocho Cave in cartography. On the rightand left high hills converge leaving between

them deep and narrow defiles, everythingresulting in a scenery of amazing coldness. Bythe eastern side, there is a barrier of high andsharp crests, some of them almost with thealtitude of A Moa (Barreiro Barral, J. 1970).

We have underlined the previous and thefollowing words. We still have to confirm thequoted cartography. If it were not the samecave, we would have another one to locate.

Xoana Cave, also known as Casaxoana orCasa da Xoana (Xoanas house), is not on ourway, because the access is by another way ofgreater difficulty.

The top of Casaxoana is formed by a rec-tangular crag where eagles nested only a fewyears ago. About ten metres down it is theentrance of a cave with 29 metres long andfive wide, which crosses the mountain fromwest to east. There are several opinions aboutits origin; some say it is natural, and othersthat it was made by the mouros (Alonso

Romero, F. 2001).Xoana Cave is also known as Rever-tedemos (Barreiro Barral, J. 1987) becausepeople said that here the devil appeared andthat on San Xoans night June 23rd - he metup with the witches of all the region to plan theevil deeds in the course of the year.

The same outrage happens with the cavewhich is down Penafiel, in the northern part ofPindo, in As Chouzas Fountain. There peoplesay there is a small cave where an enchantedsnake is hidden. It only comes out every thou-sand years. It is of great size and very fierce.



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Three kisses must be given to it to disenchantit: one on its head, another on the middle of itsbody and the third one on the tip of its tail.

The person who dares do it will turn it into agolden cobra (Alonso Romero, F. 2001).

O Cadoiro or A Cortada Well. Estuary inXallas River. Carnota.

It was said that Queen Lupa was buriedin that well and that she had many jewels inher tomb and a pot full of gold. Another leg-end and related to O Cadoiro Well talks aboutVentana das Bruxas (Witches Window), actu-ally it is a simple natural shallow cavity which

is on a rock opposite the missing waterfall andthat, according to the legend, it is the access toa cellar under it. Three barrels are kept in it:one of them contains poison; another boilingtar and the third is full of gold (...). From thecellar you can go to a large luxurious roomwhere an enchanted princess live (...). The oldpeople in Reboredo said that the daring youthdid not even have the chance to enter by thatmysterious window, because when they triedto do it a terrible storm of lightning and thun-

derclaps broke and this made the boldest goaway from there (Alonso Romero, F. 2001).

zaro River [Xallas River] or Lzaro,flows quickly among boulders not far from thesea between the beginning of O Pindo Mountand Santa Uxa do zaro (...); the place whereit falls is called Cadoiro. (Sarmiento, Fr. M.1745) (Photo 1).

2.- BELIEFS AND LEGENDS OF OFOLN CAVE AND ITS VICINITY.

There is a moura in O Foln. A womanof about 70 warned us about this when westarted to go to O Foln cave in 1992. Later onand thanks to the ethnographic investigationof Afonso Rodrguez, we did a lot of researchabout the moura in O Foln. At the end of thetwentieth century, some people left a hen atthe entrance of the place where the enchant-ment appeared as an offering to ask severalfavours to the moura: abundant harvest, to

avoid the evil eye... (Rodrguez, A., 2004). Around granite stone, which rises on thechaos of O Foln, is known as A Pedra daMoura. The references gathered from inter-views, reading and the contributions frommembers of C.E. Maxo, let us know placesnear O Foln where the mythical beings fromthe popular culture had its own story too. Thegroup offers a magical geography that we aregoing to delimit in the nearest countryside toO Foln cave (Rodrguez, A., 2004).

Os Penedos da Moura. A place in thevicinity of Pedralonga where two big roundgranite stones outstand.

This moura is described as a mixture of avery beautiful woman with white skin andlong blonde hair and her lower half body as asea mermaid or snake. Her face can be seen inthe sea from here. It is reflected in the watersof Porta Grande (Rodrguez, A., 2004) north-ern entrance of Vigo Ria between Ces north-

ern island and Home cape.On Sunday, January 21st, 1996, being near

Os Penedos da Moura, we could listen the fol-lowing story from a woman of about 60, whowas from the nearby Os Eidos, Fragoselo,Coruxo:

This was told by daddy. A man went toOs Penedos da Moura and there he saw a verybeautiful woman, really pretty, who told himshe was enchanted. The woman told him thatif he helped her to go away from there, theyboth would leave carrying with them a goldencart and its golden oxen. Good heavens! The


Photo 1.- ca. 1928in Cadoiro dozaro, Geografa

General del Reinode Galicia, Coru-a Volume 1: 215.


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ox was also golden. The man fell in love withthe girl and said yes. So, she said she wasgoing to go down the stone and from there asnake would go out, but he could not mentionthe word God. Then, a snake went out andstarted to go up the mans legs. The man hadsuch long-suffering... but when the snakereached his neck he said: Ow [with a deepmoan and frightened throwing his hands to hischest]- My god! The snake went away.Broum! An enormous noise was heard andthe hillock collapsed. The man went aroundthere, but the woman was never seen again.

Xerardo Dasairas tells that in Os Penedosda Moura it was said to be a treasure. Manypeople went there to cast spells to disenchantit, but when they did this a moura came outand started to dance on the stone. When theysaw this, they escaped frightened and left thetreasure (Dasairas, X., 1987). AfonsoRodrguez, on his part, in his study, specifiesthat this treasure was in one of the crags, butnobody knew in which one. Moreover, the

other one was said to have so much poison tokill all the people in Coruxo.

Several witnesses pointed out that aroundthe middle of the twentieth century a man whointended to get the supposed gold from theinside wealth largely talked about madepart of the crag to explode with dynamiteleaving it lowered, the way you can still seetoday. Others say the reason was less fantasticand that that man only wanted to blast it

because of his trade as a stonemason. AsAfonso Rodrguez (Rodrguez, A., 2004)explains the intention of the stonemason wasto blast it completely, but for some reasonunknown to us he was frightened, leaving thecrag like that.

A Pedra Moura

Without any doubt it is Maxos mostfamous carving rock. It is near the centre ofpopulation in Fragoselo, in a strategic pointfrom where you can control the valley of Rega

River between Chandebrito fort, which domi-nates from the top, and Coruxo.

In 1943, Lus Monteagudo picked up thefollowing contributions:

I could pick up three stories, told by twoold men from that place. One of them who,as a modern druid, and with the Saint Ciprinon his hand [Saint Ciprin or Ciprianillo:famous magic book, essential to disenchanttreasures] tried to look for the treasure in themoura crag- he told me that lying on the softgrass, he had witnessed from a certain dis-tance and for some nights how a green light

went past. Sometimes it lit up the underwearof those who wear them. When going out ofthe crags in A Dobesa do Rey - that is theprevious name of A Dobesa de Fregoselo- itwent around the carballeira (oak wood),which today does not exist, and taking theway towards the mountain it went down theopposite slope; this mountain called MouroGrande [Maxo G.] according to him, it hasa deep lake on its top which never dries

[Odos de Mar]; someone also told me that aRoman channel to carry water comes from itdown to some Roman ruins in Canido [Fontedo Sapo-Pedra da Garza] (Monteagudo, L.,1943).

The same old man told me that thosedrawings were the plan which os mouroshad left so people could find the treasures theyhad hidden when they ran away. Anotherpeasant said that one of his ancestors, when

she was young, had seen a young lady, glow-ing with beauty, who was laying wheat in thesun on the crag. Holding out her hand sheoffered it to the girl; the girl was afraid andrun away; the following day the young ladyhad disappeared (Monteagudo, Lus , 1943)..

Xerardo Dasairas, who names the place asA Pedra dos Mouros, picks up the previouslegends and adds that people also talks abouta siren who, from time to time, rose to combher hair in the sun, disappearing at once.Another variant of this story talks about a vir-gin instead of the siren (Dasairas, X. 1987)



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The study carried out by Afonso Rodrguezconfirms and emphasizes the diversity of theintangible heritage associated with this place.

In fact, according to many inhabitants inter-viewed by him, the real Pedra Moura was dif-ferent from the one with the carvings. It wasnearby, upper than the hillside, in Alto doCataboi, and it was destroyed by masonry inthe first decades of the twentieth century. It isremembered as a round granite stone withbasins that kept water and a hole in its interior,called cacheira. This crag flew open in cer-tain moments during the day, specially at day-

break. Then, an extremely beautiful womanwent out (Rodrguez, A., 2004). The rockwhere the carvings are is called Laxe das Patasdo Burro. It is called like that because of thehoofmarks printed there by a donkey otherssay it was a horse- and also the footsteps of aparishioner boy, both killed by a big snakewhich also left its trace printed on the rock.

From all the motifs shown in this carvingrock, it stands out the biggest combination ofconcentric circles, the one that has superim-

posed a letter Phi in its centre. It has a name: OPostigo do Zapn. Through this little door thebeautiful enchantment disappeared when, farfrom her cave, the moura felt observed by theneighbours; then she would raise the trap dooras a woman and she would go in as a snake,always walking backwards into the rock.

The story of the man and the moura in OsPenedos da Moura, listened by us, has alsobeen documented in Pedra da Moura-Laxe das

Patas do Burro.A Casa de Dios. A place in the neighbour-hood of Santo Cristo, Fragoselo. A small gran-ite dome with holes as cacheiras and basinswhich despite being among the houses, it isrespected. In the oral local tradition it is calledA Casa de Dios because God himself, or JesusChrist, has its own home here.


Photo 2.- At dawn, he liked to look out and observe from here the mouras or sirens in Os Penedos da Moura andin A Pedra da Moura, who just at that moment went out of the rocks where they were enchanted (Rodrguez, A.,2004).


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San Lourenzo de Coruxo. Os Penedos deSan Lourenzo are on the top sides of SanLourenzo de Coruxo, inside the archaeologicalprotected area of the vast Iron Age settlement.

The festivals of San Lourenzo have deeproots in our parish. Long ago, before the annu-al celebrations took place, the neighboursfrom that place brushed and washed rocks andcrags till they were sparkling. The priest him-self went up to the place and there he blessedthe well, which people told it did not dry inany time of the year. Then, the devotees wentup many of them were not inhabitants of

Coruxo- and there they washed their eyes withthe water of the so-called Pozo de SanLourenzo, which people assured it had cura-tive properties. (Rodrguez, A., 2004).

The case, already studied by Jos Maralvarez Blzquez, can be summed up as fol-lows: in these rocks there is a rock group madeup of the integration of natural shapes theblocks themselves, joints, basins, the probablecave cacheiras, tafoni, -with human carv-

ings, lines, steps and rock carvings-which forman archaeological and ethnographical areawith an exceptional value. Among the numer-ous and supposed prehistoric Altars for sacri-fice in our country, this seems to be the lessprone to fantasizing, since it was worshippedfor the last time a few years ago.

From the seventies of the past twentiethcentury, you cannot reach Os Penedos de SanLourenzo due to some troubles with the sur-rounding owners who do not let anyone

through towards the rocky hill. In fact wecould never visit the place.

According to the local oral tradition, thebody of the saint martyr was washed in OPozo de San Lourenzo. In Galician oral tradi-tion, Lourenzo is the name of the Sun.

3.- BELIEFS AND STORIES OF PICOSACRO MOUNTAIN AND CAVE

Twice a year, on the 20th of January andthe last Sunday of May, there is a procession

in honour of St. Sebastian in Pico Sacro. Thisreligious expression is only one of the sacredcharacteristics of the mountain. Many peopleattribute curative power to Pico Sacro.

Among other possible testimonies:Our villagers think that O Pico Sagro has

certain power and extraordinary effectiveness;so, in some places when they are upset by anyailment, they go up a place from where theycan see the prodigious mountain and they talkto it like this: Picosagro, Picosagro cure thisailment I have. The ceremonial also requiresto carry a crust of bread and leave it on the

place from where you are talking toPicosagro (Fernndez Snchez, J. & FreireBarreiro, F., 1885).

The power of the mountain can be sensedin a vast and well spread series of popularproverbs related to meteorology thatPicosagro has as its protagonist. For example,it warns us: When O Pico Sacro puts on itsheaddress / water we have, little or much.Some people also believe in a powerful and

magic wind that carries all kinds of posses-sions into O Pico (Luces Miranda, J., 1888)and even kidnap girls:

It is said that all the fruits which had to bepicked up by the peasants went to the bigbread bins and silos in the ancestral home ofPico Sagro, but nobody knows where it isbecause the rocks are covering it from longtime ago; it is so many years that no old mancan remember it. But, despite this, there is no

single woman who dares go past the oak in AsCambas at night fall, because although theycommend themselves to Saint Lourenzo,patron of the parish, they run the risk of beingtaken by the whirl of wind to the upper floorof Pico Sagro ancestral home, in the same waythat the bread of the fields go there the daybefore the cutting (Carre Alvarellos, L.,1969).

O Pico Sacro stories are also varied andwell known, even among villages out of theway of the mountain. We are before an ethno-graphic combination at first hand, by the



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validity of traditions and by the multiple refer-ences compiled during centuries.

The dragon topic has already been docu-

mented in medieval writings that maintainedthe myth of the translation of St. James body.The story tells that, after being executed bythe Romans in Palestine, he is transported in astone boat to Galicia where the sepulchre islooked for. In the twelfth century, the CodexCalixtinus tells that in this adventure the enor-mous dragon, which lived in this mountain,was defeated by the carriers of St. Jamesbody, because it could not stand the sign of

Gods cross. The story goes on telling thatthey also defeated dozens of devils who werein the mountain and, without any problem,they got the oxen they needed to translate theapostles body to the place that would be theone selected for his grave: Compostela. Fromthat day on:

This mountain, earlier called Ilicino, theone which captivates, because previously tothat time many men ill-fatedly seduced wor-shipped the devil there, was called by themMount Sacro, that is, sacred mountain(Moralejo, A. & Torres, C. & Feo, J., 1951).

Also related to this medieval story, at leastpart of it, it is A Raa Lupa (Queen Lupa), thelady of the country when the carriers of St.James body arrived. In popular literature themythical queen appears almost always withthe same attributes as Galician enchantedwomen, the mouras. She was told to have bigtreasures, her ancestral home in the cave, an

alley and a vegetable garden in the next top.Among the stories about Lupa in O Pico Sacrowe think it is exemplary the one picked up in1963 by the archeologist Vzquez Varela froman elderly peasant:

Queen Lupa lived in O Pico Sacro. Therewas a servant of a house who took the pigs tograze to the mountain. This servant realizedthat some of the pigs were fattening a lot so hedecided to follow them. He went to a cave.There he met Queen Lupa. She told him shewould feed the pigs and in return when theanimals were slaughtered he should give her

the best pork sausages of the best pork. Heaccepted. When the owner of the pigs, an oldwoman, heard of it, instead of taking her thebest pork sausages, she took her the worst.Queen Lupa throw the deception back in theold womans face and told her she was goingto punish her. The pork sausages turn intosnakes, which eat her. Her skeleton can still beseen at the bottom of the well (Moralejo, A.& Torres, C. & Feo, J., 1951).

About O Pico Sacro there abound anotherkind of stories too, such as the ones abouttreasures in the inside of the mountain, with

marvellous rooms with graves, dishes withmercury and thousands of riches looked afterby pitiless creatures and/or giants. Supposedtreasures that made more than one person losehis/her patrimony:

(...) and it happened that a man calledJuan Antn, inhabitant of Corua, some yearsago said that in this peak towards the easternpart there were some assets, and some menmotivated by this made a descent like a tunnel

and through this one they went down to themine which leads to the mentioned place (...)and they stupidly wasted their possessions inthis (Hoyo, J., 1607).

There are many references to the mouros,mythical population who lives in Galicia.Here the building of the cave is ascribed tothem.

The mouros made the holes in O Pico.Firstly, they made small holes in the rock;

then, they put dry wood wedges. Then, theyput water on the wedges, which swelled andthe rock broke (Neira Pereira, E., 1992).

Even so, the imaginary about O PicoSacro cave stands out because it is supposedto have extraordinary dimensions. It is statedthat through O Burato dos Mouros, there is apath that leads to the place where the UllaRiver spectacularly narrows; it is called OPaso de San Xoan da Cova, five straight kilo-metres from O Pico, the border between AEstrada council and the province ofPontevedra. There are a lot of references to



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this long and imaginary path. Here, there aresome examples:

It is said that below that mountain rangethere is a mine which goes as far as the UllaRiver, next to the monastery [San Xoan daCova], and long ago people used to throwsome ducks and birds there to the entrance ofthis mine and they came out by the river, nearthe monastery (Hoyo, J., 1607).

This cavern is open and so deep thatnobody has ever seen its bottom, althoughsome people has tried to, and it is so long thatothers think it goes as far as the Ulla River,

which flows a long league distant from thepeak (lvarez Sotelo, 1689).

The most common opinion and also theless right supports that Ilicino undergroundflows for over a league and a half into SanJuan da Cova (Vicenti, B., 1875).

According to the inhabitants of the coun-try, Queen Lupa palace is in the bowels of themountain. Inside the cave there is a vault,where water is dripping from its walls. At the

bottom, there is an opening quite symmetricaland next to it the excavations where the stonesare thrown. Their beating against the walls isheard, but not when they reach the bottom:Ordinary people think it is an undergroundpath which goes as far as O Paso [de SanXon da Cova] (Carr, E., 1936).

The Queens soldiers took their horsesalong this path to drink. This well outstands: ithas an enchantment [enchanted guardian

who may be the moura or the treasure itselfbut transformed] which is a golden beam, andsomething similar to a bottomless pit(Llinares Garca, M., 1990).

4. BELIEFS AND STORIES OF THECAVES IN MOUNT GALIEIRO

The stories related to the caves in MountGalieiro still exist thanks to the contribution

of the oral tradition of Vincios parishioners.These stories were picked up by C.E. Maxo

and Afonso Rodrguez Gonzlez (RodrguezGonzlez, A., 2005) during the last five years.

The legends related to the mountain refer

to water:Flooded Sea: People places it near As

Ghallas on the top west side of O Galieiro, ina rock known as O Ollo do Mar, because ifyou go past there, you hear the water flowing.In the popular culture if this rock were broken,the whole parish would be flooded because allthe water that is inside the mountain would bespilt.

Meteorological phenomena: Related to the

old woman, A Vella. In this place called OndeFumegha A Vella one could know if it wasgoing to be a hard winter when from this rockthere seemed to come out smoke because itwas said an old woman was boiling or grillingchestnuts. The effect was due to the rain raisedby the wind. It is a feminine deification ofwinter.

In hidden places, the CAVES, the refer-ences are related to:

1.- Fantastic and nowadays extinct ani-mals as we pick up in:

Cova da Becha: a huge snake lived in it; ithad to be fed with milk by the neighbours whodid this so the snake would not come down tosuckle the goats who had recently given birth.The snake is the first state of the developmentof a becha, coca, which is how it is namedthe dragon in Galician culture.

Ghrencha do Brin: O Brin is describedas if it were an eagle owl. Its peculiar exis-

tence was that it lived with a heron. The eagleowl brought food from the sea to feed thechicks of both of them.

2.- Beings of another world, as the Deviland the Mouros:

Casa do Demo (house of the devil): thereare many places in A Serra do Galieiro whichrefer to the Devil, Forno do Demo, Cornos doDemo, due to the demoniac nature that noteasily accessible and steep places had for therural culture. In this way, A Casa do Demo iswell-known in the parish of Vincios because itwas a shelter for the stonemasons in winter



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days and also because it had been fitted out asa repair shop for masonry tools. It was also tobe sheltered in winter when shepherding.

A Lapa da Moura and O Coto da Moura: AMoura, as a mythical character, is described asa woman with golden hair who combed herhair with a golden comb. She was extremelybeautiful; she captivated the one who lookedat her and promised big riches to those whocarried out one of her orders without tellinganybody. In the following story the mourosway of acting is better shown:

In Moutas Mount (Prado) there are some

burial mounds. Beneath them the mouroswere said to live. Once, some men went there


to dig, to unearth the gentiles buried treasure.But what they found in the inside were horns,a lot of horns. They filled up an oxen cart with

them, as a yoke. When the cart driver whodrove the yoke was opposite to a friendshouse, this one invited him to go in and havesomething. When the cart driver was going in,he left some of the horns he was carrying inhis cart at the entrance of the house. When hisfriend came out and found the horns, he flewinto a temper: he had invited him and hisfriend paid him with horns! He was carrying ascythe in his hand and with the rage he hit one

of the horns with the blade, the horn was cutand from its interior gold came out.

Photo 3.- Coto da Moura in Chain,Gondomar.

A Capela dos Mouros: Mythical beings

who lived underground or in structures forwhich the Galician peasants had no logical

explanation about its building. On the flat sur-

face of the hole there are rock carved rectan-gular basins, which the peasants interpret as


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lavadourios where the mouros came andwashed their gold. When cups appeared theysay they used them to put candles in them.

5. BELIEFS AND STORIES ABOUT OCASTELO DA FURNA

As it could not be in another way, OCastelo da Furna has also a rich intangiblepatrimony associated to it. One of the old cus-toms related to this castle, and also one of themost popular is the joke that single men andwomen play to know who is going to get mar-ried. The first person to leave a stone on therock will be the first to get married. If all thestones fall, he or she will remain single.

Among the different legendary stories,which have the scene in O Castelo da Furna, itstands out The Legend of the Enchanted Shop.We have shortened it here, according to theinvestigator lvaro Campelos work. We aretold that one moonlit night at the beginning ofa summer, at the time of S. Joo festival, a

man who was going with his cattle to themountain as everyday, got up earlier withoutrealizing. When he was going past a big cragviu uma tenda em ouro!(he saw a goldenshop!). Next to the gold there was a long hairwoman who after a while asked the impressedpeasant what he preferred: What do you preferthis golden shop or me? The man chose theshop and, of course, all he had seen disap-peared. If he had chosen the woman, who was

an enchanted moura, he would have also hadall the gold (Campelo, ., 2003).Another one, the story of Queen Aragunta

tells as the mentioned queen goes to the castlefleeing from her husband who had her dis-owned and sentenced to death, because of theservants gossip. Aragunta, pretending to befed with trouts by an eagle which drop them,managed to get the king, also impressed bythe source of water there, raise the siege andforgive her because he thought Araguntaenjoyed a supernatural protection. As you cansee in Valena town council website:

There seems to be an element of truth inthis story. Queen Aragunta [Aragonta], thewife of Ordonho II, of Leo [and of Galiza

between the years 914-924] whom he dis-owned. She came to Salzeda monastery[Salceda de Caselas, near Tui] to be taken inthere; she is said to have died blessed; thisprovoked remorse to the king. This queen wasthe daughter of the earl D. Gonalo and thecountess Dna Teresa, and she was the sister ofthe earl Emmenegildo Gonalves, fromPortugal and Tui.

The micro-place named A Horta da Raa,

a terrace placed in the interior of O Castelo daFurna, can have the previous story as a pointof reference, but there are people who statethat its name is due to Virgin Mary. In fact,another place from this granite castle, whichhas a special meaning, is A Pa da NossaSenhora.

Inside the top in O Castelo da Furna, thereis a group of basins. Among these basins thereis one that is sacred. It is commonly thoughtthat this basin is always with water becausethe stone sweats and in St. Johns night,many people fill demijohns with waterbefore sunrise.

We were lucky to document (Ref. X&L,CEM, August 2006) some detailed versions ofthis old story, and living witnesses who guar-antee the benefits of the water in this basin.The story, which has as reference the flight toEgypt that the New Testament states, is sum-marized as follows, according to what Uncle

Anibal da Pita, born in Taio in 1931 told us:A Nosa Seora ran away from her pur-suers. The enemy was following her becauseshe was carrying Jesus in her arms. The Virginforrou a mula s avesas, nailed the mulesfoot from back to front, so the devil could notfind them. In this way, the enemy would thinkthey came from O Castelo da Furna, wherethey were actually going. On her way, she washelped by some brambles, which caught theenemy, and that is why the Virgin blessedthem. On the contrary, she excommunicatedthe antremoos who indicated the flight



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direction making such a noise. Once in OCastelo da Furna, the Virgin carefully used thebasin, which is today called da Nossa

Senhora, as a cot for the baby Jesus.Directly related to this story, there are As

Pegadas da Nossa Senhora (the footsteps),probably the lowering of rock carved as stepsto easily go past the castle. The story saysthat in the castle rocks there are some foot-steps ascribed to A Nossa Senhora. The popu-lar tradition says that whoever wants to go upthe rock, they will have no option but to fol-low her steps, one foot before the other

(Salvador, V., 2006).

CONCLUSIONS

The utilities of Anthropospeleology arevery important for:

Human Sciences, because they renamethe concepts and history periods and usethe oral history for societies withoutwriting.

Particular Galicia History, because itpicks up customs, uses and functionsthat the granite caves had for the neigh-bours of the place and picks up micro-toponymy.

There are many systems of classificationand explanations about Galician mythologytill now. We systematize here its subject mat-

ter with the aim of offering the fullest possibleoutlook of a complex world according to thearea our piece of work covers, the granitecaves.

The mythical places with granite caves arein high mountains, singular stones, waterplaces: Fountains-springs and pot water, andPrehistoric Monuments.

The mythical beings are in O GalieiroMountain, as in other Galician places, areas

considered as magical because they are of dif-ficult access, have a strange petrological orgeological shape, represent territorial marksor outstand in the landscape as landmarks ofmeteorological observation, springs of water,etc..

Acknowledgments: We thank RosanaEstvez Pereira for translating the paper toEnglish version, that without her, we couldnot do this difficult work. We thank Afonso S.

Rodrguez, too, for his fieldwork recordingthe mythology that we use in this paper. Andto finish, we thank the other members of theCEM.



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myths, legends, and beliefs on granite caves

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