Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The Virgin of the Volcanoes and the mark of the hand

Mancha Blanca, Tinajo (Lanzarote) (1730-1736)

Enter 1730 y 1736, las erupciones de Timanfaya they completely redid the geography of Lanzarote. The rivers of fire buried villages and whole fields, and the people, terrified, sought refuge in prayer.

According to the tradition of the majority, a frail francisca encouraged the neighbors to take out the picture of Our Lady of the Dolores and to meet the laundry. A man, embraced a wood crossHe went forward and nailed her to the earth before the incandescent magma.

To this advocation, by that prodigy, La Palma - and all the Canary Islands - knows it with a name full of tenderness: the Virgin of the Volcanoes.

Tradition adds an affectionate detail: time after, a woman in mourning appeared to a pastoral girl, Juana Rafaelato remember that the promise of the hermitage was fulfilled. So that they could believe it when the message was transmitted, He laid his hand on him and left him a visible signal. as proof that the message came from heaven.

From there the beautiful popular memory of "the hand of the Virgin" linked to the volcanoes of the Canary Islands: not a few burned hands, but the loving footprint of a Mother who comes out of the fire to protect her children. All this is transmitted as devotional legend; what is documented are the eruptions of Timanfaya and the origin of the White Mancha hermitage.