Who is the moura encantada?
On the shortest night of the year, Saint John’s Eve, a woman of great beauty sits by a spring combing her hair with a golden comb. She offers a treasure to whoever passes by. To free her, you have to kiss her, often while she has taken the form of a snake. Anyone who hesitates or flinches doubles her enchantment. Almost no one passes the test.
Where to find her
Moura legends are attached to springs, rocks, wells and above all to the ruins of pre-Roman settlements, the castros. In the 19th century, the archaeologist Francisco Martins Sarmento used moura legends and local place names as clues when he excavated the Citânia de Briteiros in northern Portugal.
Where the name comes from
The common explanation goes like this: the moura was a Moorish princess who stayed behind during the Reconquista and was put under a spell. Alexandre Herculano gave this version literary form in 1851. The philologist Isidoro Millán proposed a different derivation, from a Celtic root meaning “the dead woman.” In that case, the moura would originally have been a figure of the dead, and only later attributed to the defeated Moors. This reading is disputed, but it fits the fact that the legends cling to ancient burial sites.
What scholars say
José Leite de Vasconcelos saw the moura as a fusion with older spring and nature deities. Isabel Cardigos interprets her as the unattainable woman whose rescue, by the logic of the story, is bound to fail.
Episode on this topic
Further reading
- José Leite de Vasconcelos: Tradições Populares de Portugal, 1882.
- Zófimo Consiglieri Pedroso: Contribuições para uma Mitologia Popular Portuguesa, 1882.
- Teófilo Braga: Contos Tradicionais do Povo Português, 1883.
- Alexandre Herculano: Lendas e Narrativas, 1851.
- Isabel Cardigos: The Enchanted Calendar of the Mouras Encantadas.