Enchanted Moura
The Enchanted moura or moura encantada (enchanted female Mouros) is a supernatural being from the fairy tales of Portuguese and Galician[1] 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.
Appearance
The enchanted Moura often appears singing and using a golden comb on her beautiful long hair, the colour of gold or black as the night, promising to give treasures to whomsoever sets her free by breaking her spell. (In Galicia, though, they are more commonly redheads.)[citation needed]
Enchantment
According to José Leite de Vasconcelos, mouras encantadas are “beings compelled by an occult power to live on a certain state of siege as if they were numb or asleep, insofar as a particular circumstance does not break their spell”.[2] According to ancient lore, they are the souls of young maidens who were left guarding the treasures that the males, mouros encantados (enchanted mouros) hid before heading to Mourama.[clarification needed]
In legend
The legends describe mouras encantadas as young maidens of great beauty or as charming princesses who are "dangerously seductive".[3][4]
They are
José Leite de Vasconcelos considered as a possibility that the mouras encantadas may have had assimilated the characteristics of local deities, such as nymphs and spirits of nature. Consiglieri Pedroso also referred to the mouras encantadas as "feminine water genies".[5] The tales of the mouras are part of a wider lore of the "mouros encantados", who some times appear as giants or warriors, which also include the mourinhos or maruxinhos, a very small elf like people who live under the ground.[6][7][8]
Origins
The fairy tales featuring mouras encantadas are thought to be of pre-Roman, Indo-European Celtic origin. They are related to other Indo-European, and especially Celtic, female divinities of the water. Almost every Portuguese or Galician town has a tale of a Moura Encantada.[9] The lore of the mouros encantados is used to find prehistoric monuments and was for some time used in the 19th century as the main method to locate Lusitanian archaeological "monuments", as Martins Sarmento viewed these as a kind of folk memory that was erased with Christianization.[10][11]
Like the
of Basque mythology also sing and uses a golden comb on her beautiful long hair, the colour of gold, promising to give treasures or fulfill a desire of the person that manages to steal their comb (sometimes with trickering consequences).Etymology
Moura is a homonym word with two distinct roots and meanings; one from
However, the word mouro is also a synonym of Muslim. Since the Iberian peninsula was occupied by Muslims for many centuries, it might potentially refer to young Muslims slain in battle.[12][13]
Variants
Princesa moura
Princesa moura appears as a snake with long blond hair. In some fairy tales, the beings are beautiful
Moura-fiandeira
In other variants, the moura encantada is a
Pedra-Moura
Pedra-moura are mouras encantadas named for living inside stones.[19] It was believed that who ever sat on one of these stones would become enchanted, or, that if any enchanted stone was taken to a house, all the animals in the house could die. It was also believed that pedras mouras had enchanted treasures inside them. There are several legends where the moura, instead of being a stone, lives inside the stone. In Portuguese lore it is said that you can walk into or walk out of certain rocks, possibly related to the moura legends. The moura is also described as traveling to Mourama (an enchanted place) while sitting on a stone that can float in the air or water. Inside caves, under rocks and under the earth, many legends say there exist palaces with treasures. According to Thurnwald (cited in McKenna, 1938), it was not uncommon among the people of pre-Roman Iberian Peninsula to believe that the souls of the dead dwell in certain rocks.[20]
The almas dos mouros or alminhas dos mouros (souls or little souls of the mouros) was the name given to the votive aras, being alminhas the common name for the wayside shrine.[21]
Moura-serpente
In some tales, the enchanted moura is a shapeshifter who takes the form of a snake or cobra (Moura-cobra); sometimes of a dog (cão), goat (cabra) or horse (cavalo). These moura snake may have wings and can appear as half woman and half animal and like to be offered milk.
Moura-Mãe
In some tales she is called Moura-mae or mother-moura, and takes the form of a charming young lady who is pregnant, and the narrative focuses on the search for a midwife to help at the birth and the reward that is given to the person willing to help.
Moura-Velha
The moura-velha is an old woman; the legends where she appears with the shape of an old woman are now infrequent.
Moura-lavadeira
Moura-lavadeira is a washerwoman but she is only seen putting white clothes out in the sun, contrary to the Lavandières who wash blood-stained clothes, the mouras are more like the lavadeiras.[22][23][24]
Frades
Frades (lit:
Legend elements
Gold
The gold of the mouras may appear in various forms: figs, coal, skirts, hank of yarn, animals or tools. There are several ways to obtain this gold: it may be offered by the moura encantada as a reward, it can be stolen or found. Frequently the gold is inside a vase, hidden inside buried pans, or other receptacles, which has raised the question that this could be related to funerary urns. When there is a pot of gold there may also be together a pot of silver and a pot of plague.
St. John's Day
Fountain
The fountain is one of the places where mouras encantadas appear frequently as serpents and magical properties are attributed to their waters as the Fonte da Moura Encantada. It is also a popular custom to say to those that marry in foreign lands that he “drank from the fountain” and fell in love, as an allusion to the legends where young men fall in love and are enchanted by the mouras.
Enchantment
The state of occult enchantment of the moura herself is generally caused by a male figure, her father or some other enchanted Mouro that left her to guard his treasures. Usually it is mouros that have the power to enchant the mouras. In legends, the mouras may appear alone, accompanied by other mouras or by a male being, a mouro, that may be her father, a beloved person or a brother.
Disenchantment
To break the spell of the moura she may ask for a kiss, a cake or bread with no salt, milk, the pronunciation of a certain word, or realization of some chore like not looking at something hidden. To fail means not to free the moura and dobrar o encanto (double the spell), lose the treasure or lose the beloved moura. The legends where bread is asked may be related to the old traditions of offering food to the dead. In the same way the offering of milk may be related with the offerings made to the waters and snakes. The old popular tradition mentions that snakes like milk. One moura legend of Formigais referred to the preference mouras had for milk.
The mouras, when disenchanted may become human and marry her savior or disappear. In the legends of the cinto da moura, after the disenchantment the Mouro tries to enchant the moura again and make the moura return to the mourama.
Mourama
Mourama is a magic place where the mouros encantados live under the earth in Portugal and Galicia. It is also believed that "In Galicia there are two overlapped people: a part lives on the surface of land; they are the Galician people, and the other in the subsoil, the Mouros." Mourama is the
Tempo da mouraria
In the legends it is an uncertain time in the past, the same kind of time reference as “once upon a time” of fairy tales.
Funerary monuments
Funerary monuments are often associated with the mouras encantadas. In some regions,
Cadeira da moura
Moura's chair is a monolith with the shape of a chair thought to be a royal throne. The moura sits on the chair at night and every time the moura is going to get water she carries the chair under her arm.[31][32]
See also
- Madam Koi Koi
- Mami Wata
- Mare (folklore)
- Mouros
- Succubus
- Xana (Asturian supernatural women)
References
- ISBN 84-8302-363-6
- Vasconcelos, José Leite. (1938). Opusculos (Ed), Volume V, Etnologia (Parte I), Lisboa Imprensa Nacional, p. 496 PDF Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Filipa. (10 April 2006), Que mouros são esses?, in PJ, Diário de Trás-os-Montes". Archived from the original on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
- ^ Parafita, Alexandre. A Mitologia dos Mouros, Porto, Gailivro, 2006.
- ^ Medicina na Beira interior da Pré-História ao século XX,nº13 1999, Cadernos de cultura, Ediraia
- ^ ""O Tesouro dos Maruxinhos" lançado na Biblioteca Municipal de Chaves". Archived from the original on 2011-10-01. Retrieved 2011-08-07.
- ^ "Portugal, mundo dos mortos e das mouras encantadas, vol. I, Lisboa, Apenas Livros, 2009" (PDF).
- ^ "Autores da Região "O Tesouro dos Maruxinhos"" (PDF).[permanent dead link]
- ^ Brandão, Abílio. "Lendas de Mouras encantadas" Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, in Revista Lusitana, Volume XIV Lisboa: Livraria Clássica Editora, 1911
- ^ ETNOGRAFIAS PORTUGUESAS (1870-1970):Cultura Popular e Identidade Nacional
- ^ "LUGAR E MEMORIA" (PDF).
- ISBN 9788497501224– via Google Books.
- ^ "A Genética e a Teoria da Continuidade Paleolítica Aplicadas à Lenda da Fundação de Portugal, Irlanda e Escócia" (PDF) (in Portuguese). Lisboa: Apenas Livros. 2008.
- ^ AEIOU. "AEIOU.pt".
- ISBN 84-95364-16-6
- ^ "Mouros Míticos em Trás-os-Montes – contributos para um estudo dos mouros no imaginário rural a partir de textos da literatura popular de tradição oral" (PDF).
- ^ "Las mouras constructoras de megalitos: Estudio comparativo del folklore gallego con el de otras comunidades europeas" (PDF).
- ^ "ARQUEOLOXÍA E FOLCLORE: CONCELLOS DE ARES E MUGARDOS*" (PDF).
- ^ Robin Gallop, PORTUGAL: A BOOK OF FOLK-WAYS, Cambridge University Press, 1936; reprint 1961
- ^ "As hagiografias como instrumentos de difusão do cristianismo católico nos meios rurais da Espanha visigótica" (PDF).
- ^ "TOPONIMIA ARQUEOLÓGICA DE ENTREDOURO E VOUGA (DISTRITO DE AVEIRO)". Archived from the original on 2012-04-03. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
- ^ Leite de Vasconcellos Pereira de Mello, José (29 April 1882). "Tradições populares de Portugal". Porto, Livraria portuense de Clavel & c.a – via Internet Archive.
- ^ "Portugal, mundo dos mortos e das mouras encantadas, vol. III, Lisboa, Apenas Livros, 2010" (PDF).
- ^ "Lavandaie notturne nel folklore europeo: per una stratigrafia preistorica, in S.M. Barillari (ed.), Dark Tales. Fiabe di paura e racconti del terrore. Atti del Convegno di Studi sul Folklore e il Fantastico (Genova, 21-22 novembre 2009), Alessandria, Edizioni dell'Orso" (PDF).
- ^ http://www.igespar.pt/pt/patrimonio/pesquisa/geral/patrimonioimovel/detail/74385/
- ^ Myths, legends and beliefs on granite caves
- ^ "Portugal Mundo dos Mortos e das Mouras Encantadas VolumeII" (PDF).
- ^ "A Mourama" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
- ISBN 9781605061801– via Google Books.
- ^ "Tente, Catarina; Lourenço, Sandra.(1998) Sepulturas Medievais escavadas nas rochas dos Conselhos de Carregal do Sal e Gouveia: estudo comparativo, Revista Portuguesa de Arqueologia" (PDF).
- ^ "DOCUMENTOS MEDIEVAIS SOBRE MONTE REDONDO" (PDF).[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Território, povoamento e sociedade:estudo monográfico de Monte Redondo". Archived from the original on 2009-04-15. Retrieved 2011-08-15.
Further reading
- Rodríguez-Saavedra, Alba (2020). "A moura: a deusa traducida" [The Moura: The Goddess Translated]. In Jackiewicz, Aleksandra; de la Torre, Edyta Waluch; Beltrán-Cejudo, Gerardo; Popek-Bernat, Katarzyna (eds.). La traducción literaria en el contexto de las lenguas ibéricas (in Spanish). Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. pp. 288–303.