Rooster of Barcelos

Last updated
Rooster of Barcelos PA2900302 galo emiliarocha medio.jpg
Rooster of Barcelos

The Rooster of Barcelos (Portuguese : Galo de Barcelos) is a common symbol of Portugal.

Contents

Folk tale

The Rooster of Barcelos is sold as a souvenir from Portugal. Thornton2012-053 (8114900101).jpg
The Rooster of Barcelos is sold as a souvenir from Portugal.

The folk tale of the rooster of Barcelos, [1] tells the story of a dead rooster's miraculous intervention in proving the innocence of a man who had been falsely convicted and sentenced to death. The story is associated with the 17th-century calvary that is part of the collection of the Archaeological Museum located in Paço dos Condes, a gothic-style palace in Barcelos, a city in the Braga District of northwest Portugal.

According to the tale, a landowner in Barcelos had stolen silver and the inhabitants of that city were looking for the thief. A man from Galicia became a suspect, despite his pleas of innocence. The Galician swore that he was merely passing through Barcelos on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela to fulfill a promise.

Nevertheless, the authorities arrested the man and condemned him to hang. The man asked them to take him in front of the judge who had condemned him. The authorities honoured his request and took him to the house of the magistrate, who was holding a banquet. Affirming his innocence, the man pointed to a roasted rooster on top of the banquet table and exclaimed, "It is as certain that I am innocent as that rooster will crow when they hang me." The judge pushed aside his plate, deciding not to eat the rooster, but otherwise ignored the appeal.

However, while the pilgrim was hanged, the roasted rooster stood up on the table and crowed as predicted. Understanding his error, the judge ran to the gallows, to discover that the man had been saved from death thanks to a poorly made knot. The man was immediately freed.

Some years later, he returned to Barcelos to sculpt the Calvary (or Crucifix) to the Lord of the Rooster (Portuguese: "Cruzeiro do Senhor do Galo") in praise to the Virgin Mary and to Saint James. The monument is located in the Barcelos Archaeological Museum.

Variations

In all cases, the folk tale of the Rooster of Barcelos is about a dead rooster that crows to prove an accused man's innocence. However, variations to the story include:

The cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada in Spain keeps two live chickens in remembrance of the local version of the miracle. Huhner Santo D.jpg
The cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada in Spain keeps two live chickens in remembrance of the local version of the miracle.

In the 1990s U.S. sitcom Seinfeld , Elaine's first apartment, which she shares with a roommate who briefly dates Kramer, is shown furnished in kitschy style, cluttered with bric-a-brac—including a rooster of Barcelos. It can be seen in the episode "The Truth", aired in 1991. [4]

The rooster of Barcelos is used in the logo of Nando's, a Johannesburg-based chicken restaurant chain. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clube Atlético Mineiro</span> Association football club in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Clube Atlético Mineiro, commonly known as Atlético Mineiro and colloquially as Galo, is a professional football club of Belo Horizonte, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The team competes in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the first level of Brazilian football, as well as in the Campeonato Mineiro, the top tier state league of Minas Gerais.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vila Nova de Famalicão</span> Municipality in Norte, Portugal

Vila Nova de Famalicão is a Portuguese town with a population of approximately 133,048 inhabitants in an area of 201,59 km2, subdivided into 49 parishes. Inserted in the Braga District, in the North Region of Portugal and in the Sub-Region of Vale do Ave, global positioned at 41⁰24’36” N | 8⁰31’13.53” W. The population of Vila Nova was created in 1205 with the charter given by the King Sancho I. The municipality was created in 1835 as a detachment from Barcelos and was elevated to the category of “Vila” with the charter given by the Queen D. Maria II. In 1985, approved by National Assembly, Vila Nova de Famalicão was elevated to the category of "city". The inhabitants of Famalicão are called Famalicenses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penafiel</span> Municipality in Norte, Portugal

Penafiel (Portuguese pronunciation:[pɨnɐfiˈɛl]or is a municipality and former bishopric in the northern Portuguese district of Porto. Capital of the Tâmega Subregion, the population was 72,265 in 2011, in an area of 212.24 square kilometres.

Senhor, from the Latin Senior, is the Portuguese word for lord, sir or mister. Its feminine form is senhora. The term is related to Spanish señor, Catalan senyor, Occitan sénher, French seigneur, and Italian signore.

"The Maid Freed from the Gallows" is one of many titles of a centuries-old folk song about a condemned maiden pleading for someone to buy her freedom from the executioner. Other variants and/or titles include "The Gallows Pole", "The Gallis Pole", "Hangman", "The Prickle-Holly Bush", "The Golden Ball", and "Hold Up Your Hand, Old Joshua She Cried." In the collection of ballads compiled by Francis James Child in the late 19th century, it is indexed as Child Ballad number 95; 11 variants, some fragmentary, are indexed as 95A to 95K. The Roud Folk Song Index identifies it as number 144.

The Enchanted moura or moura encantada is a supernatural being from the fairy tales of Portuguese and Galician folklore. Very beautiful and seductive, she lives under an imposed occult spell. Shapeshifters, the mouras encantadas occupy liminal spaces and are builders with stone of formidable strength.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tourism in Portugal</span>

Tourism in Portugal serves millions of international and domestic tourists. Tourists visit to see cities, historic landmarks, enjoy beaches, or religious sites. As of 2023, Portugal had 26.5 million international visitors. In addition, there were also 11 million trips made by Portuguese residents including overnight stays at local hotels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barcelos, Portugal</span> Municipality in Norte, Portugal

Barcelos is a city and a municipality in Braga District in the Minho Province, in the north of Portugal. The population in 2011 was 120,391, in an area of 378.90 km2. With 60 parishes, it is the municipality with the highest number of parishes in the country. It is one of the growing municipalities in the country, and is well known for its textile and adobe industries, as well as its horseback riding events and "figurado" style of pottery, which are comical figurines with accentuated features of farmers, folk musicians, and nativity scene characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Leite de Vasconcelos</span> Portuguese ethnographer, archaeologist and author

José Leite de Vasconcelos Cardoso Pereira de Melo, known as simply Leite de Vasconcelos, was a Portuguese ethnographer, archaeologist and prolific author who wrote extensively on Portuguese philology and prehistory. He was the founder and the first director of the Portuguese National Museum of Archaeology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominic de la Calzada</span> Spanish saint

Dominic de la Calzada was a saint from a cottage in Burgos very close to La Rioja.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galician-Portuguese lyric</span> Lyric and poetic movement

In the Middle Ages, the Galician-Portuguese lyric, also known as trovadorismo in Portugal and trobadorismo in Galicia, was a lyric poetic school or movement. All told, there are around 1680 texts in the so-called secular lyric or lírica profana. At the time Galician-Portuguese was the language used in nearly all of Iberia for lyric poetry. From this language derives both modern Galician and Portuguese. The school, which was influenced to some extent by the Occitan troubadours, is first documented at the end of the twelfth century and lasted until the middle of the fourteenth, with its zenith coming in the middle of the thirteenth century, centered on the person of Alfonso X, The Wise King. It is the earliest known poetic movement in Galicia or Portugal and represents not only the beginnings of but one of the high points of poetic history in both countries and in Medieval Europe. Modern Galicia has seen a revival movement called neotrobadorismo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">County of Portugal</span> County in Southwestern Europe (868–1071 and 1096–1139)

The County of Portugal refers to two successive medieval counties in the region around Guimarães and Porto, today corresponding to littoral northern Portugal, within which the identity of the Portuguese people formed. The first county existed from the mid-ninth to the mid-eleventh centuries as a vassalage of the Kingdom of Asturias and the Kingdom of Galicia and also part of the Kingdom of León, before being abolished as a result of rebellion. A larger entity under the same name was then reestablished in the late 11th century and subsequently elevated by its count in the mid-12th century into an independent Kingdom of Portugal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vítor Gonçalves (footballer, born 1992)</span> Portuguese footballer

Vítor Bruno Rodrigues Gonçalves is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Liga Portugal 2 club C.D. Mafra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National symbols of Portugal</span> Overview of the national symbols of Portugal

The symbols of Portugal are official and unofficial flags, icons or cultural expressions that are emblematic, representative or otherwise characteristic of Portugal and of its culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diogo de Barcelos Machado Bettencourt</span>

Diogo de Barcelos Machado Bettencourt was a politician and judicial magistrate, as well as judge for several districts in the Azores, as well as Civil Governor of Horta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldyr Schlee</span> Brazilian journalist and author (1934–2018)

Aldyr Garcia Schlee was a Brazilian writer, journalist, translator, illustrator, and professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portuguese Way</span> Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes starting in Portugal

The Portuguese Way is the name of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes starting in Portugal. It begins at Porto or Lisbon. From Porto, along the Douro River, pilgrims travel north crossing the five main rivers—the Ave, Cávado, Neiva, Lima and Minho—before entering Spain and passing through Pontevedra on the way to Santiago de Compostela.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">António Mota (writer)</span> Portuguese novelist

António Mota is a Portuguese writer, known for his works of literature for children and young people.

Vila Nova de Gaia is a tourist destination in northern Portugal, located opposite Porto on the South bank of Douro river. The cities connect through several bridges over Douro river. Vila Nova de Gaia is home to several notable attractions, such as the Port wine cellars, Dom Luís I Bridge, the Teleferico, Monastery of Serra do Pilar, Douro Estuary and 18 km long beaches.

References

  1. Lenda do Galo de Barcelos (Portuguese)
  2. "Lenda do Galo de Barcelos" (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on October 6, 2010.
  3. O Senhor do Galo de Barcelos e o Milagre do Enforcado (Portuguese), Infopédia (online). Porto: Porto Editora, 2003-2011. Retrieved on 2011 February 07.
  4. The Truth (Seinfeld): 19′18″
  5. "Nando's Chicken and the Portuguese Rooster". www.saywhydoi.com.