In the times when the  Mouros* walked these lands, there was a Mouro who converted to Christianity, and settled  in the Varzea. He hunted, fished and gathered chestnuts from the many chestnut trees, worked the land and panned for gold in the rivers Ceira and Sotão.

But his life of abundance and tranquillity attracted the envy of the other Mouros, who had not converted to Christianity, and who coveted the land where he lived. They tried to take possession of his land by force but failed, because he was under some sort of protection. So they made a plan to flush him out by flooding the valley bottom, that had at one time been the lagoon of Sacões.

For this they mobilised all the Mouros living within twenty leagues of the valley. They worked from sunrise to sunset, never stopping, to dam the river in the Cerro da Candosa, using oxen to drag the enormous rocks they had accumulated. When they stopped work that evening, the Mouros were very satisfied with what they had accomplished – the dam was nearly half built already, and they were well on their way to achieving their perfidious intentions.

The next day was Friday, and so the Mouros did not work – each man returned home to rest, and came back to work the day after. But in the morning, when the Mouros arrived to resume work on the dam, it had gone! The enormous rocks were scattered far and wide, and the river flowed freely – how could such a thing have happened?

Outraged, the Mouros set to their task of  re-building the dam. They worked long and hard, and with great care, for many days. Their workmanship was so perfect, it seemed incapable of being destroyed. But one night, as all lay sleeping, the head Mouro had a dream in which he saw the dam once again lying demolished. He woke up and rushed out to see, and it was true – the dam had gone! He berated the guards watching over the camp, demanding to know what had happened, but they could tell him nothing, for they had seen nothing.

Undeterred, the Mouros set to work for a third time, enlisting more help, and once again the dam was built, higher and higher, until it had almost reached completion. And that night, the head Mouro  had another dream. ..

In his dream, he saw a Lady, riding on a donkey, on top of the dam. As the little donkey went walking, the massive rocks fell, and the dam disintegrated.

The head Mouro woke from his dream in a panic, and rushed outside – and there she was, just like in his dream. Sitting on a donkey, she stretched out her hands and the rocks went tumbling down and disappeared into the valley below. He tried to run towards her but he could move neither his legs nor his arms. When eventually he was free to move he ran to the place where the Lady had passed, and saw the hoofprints of the donkey in the rock, which are still there to this day.

Still the Mouros did not give up. Time and again they started to re-build their dam, and time and again the Lady Maria came at night on her donkey and knocked it down.

Eventually, the Mouros came to realise that it was divine power that was protecting the Christian Mouro, and that the Lady Maria was sent as a divine messenger to prevent them from carrying out their wicked plan. And so the head Mouro went to seek out the Christian and said to him: “I did everything I could to destroy you. But God protects you and sends the Lady Maria to ruin the dam I was trying to build to drown you. Let us make peace, and teach me to love your God.”

* Moors

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The History behind the Legend
Through the gorge at Candosa runs a seam of quartzite, one of the hardest rocks to be found – even harder than granite. In the 1940’s a railway tunnel started to be built to bring the train line to Góis. The tunnel was abandoned when the workmen hit quartzite. Even the glaciers that carved the Ceira and Sotão valleys could not break through the quartzite ridge. The gorge was probably formed by a geological fault, and slowly, over many hundreds of thousands of years, it has been weathered and cut by the river. It is probable that 10,000 years ago the gorge formed a lake that stretched all the way back up to Góis. Over time, the river Ceira wore down the gorge floor reducing the size of the lake, until the Bronze Age, when the lake was just a few hectares in size and a few meters deep.

It is probable that for the Bronze Age people and their forbears, the Neolithic inhabitants of the region, the gorge was highly significant. The gorge runs east-west, and the setting sun can be viewed down the gorge. We know from other sites in Europe that these locations were very important to the people of this time, believing that the souls of the dead travelled west towards the setting sun. The gorge also delivered a great abundance of fish, as many of the fish species have spring and summer migrations up the river to mountain spawning areas.

When the Romans arrived in the region, in the 3rd century BC, they found that gold was present in the hills and as gold dust in the rivers. It is said in historical documents, and in the folklore of the area, that the Romans cut the gorge to recover the gold in the lagoon. This is highly likely, and possibly took place in the 2nd century BC. It is also likely that this was a gradual process, where the height of the lake would be reduced slowly, taking a considerable amount of manpower. There is some evidence suggesting a man-made water course, approx..3m above the present river level, built out of large square blocks of quartzite. There are more of these blocks downstream, giving the appearance of a man-made structure that has been washed away, possibly giving rise to the idea of a dam having been destroyed.

After the lake was drained it revealed flat fertile ground, and a great number of irrigation channels were dug from the Ceira and the Sotão. Even today these channels are still in use, making this part of the Ceira valley the most productive agricultural area in the region. Over the summer the irrigation waters are vital for growing crops. In local folklore there is a story of a conflict between the Christians and the Moors. The story says that the Christians repeatedly blocked the river to prevent the Moors from gaining access to the water, and at night the Moors took down the barrier, which the next day the Christians would rebuild. It is probable that this story is about the irrigation system. There would almost certainly have been tensions between the two groups, which may well have been played out through control over the water resource.

Putting these pieces of historical evidence together, one can see how the Legend of Candosa may have arisen. However, the Legend almost certainly had a far greater richness and significance to the people of the region in the variations of its telling than we can begin to explain by looking at the different factors that may contribute to it. And it is therein that a Legend always holds its mystery!

Bronze Age Crannogs of the Candosa Lake

The information on this page will be updated soon, as we are investigating the history and folklore of this area.

Petroglyphs of the Candosa Gorge