Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"The horse that stopped at the edge of the abyss"

Nazaré (Portugal) (1182)

On Portugal's Atlantic coast, atop a cliff in the highlands known as Sítio, stands the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Nazaré, next to the small Chapel of Memory. The image is a tiny Black Madonna, seated and breastfeeding the Child, about twenty-five centimeters tall, venerated since medieval times.

The legend of Nazaré—as Portuguese historiography itself calls it—tells that, in the early morning of September 14, 1182, Dom Fuas Roupinho, warden of the castle of Porto de Mós, was hunting near the coast on a foggy morning. While pursuing a deer on horseback, the animal ran toward the edge of the cliff and disappeared. Dom Fuas, realizing he was on the brink of the precipice, invoked the Virgin of Nazaré. At that moment, the horse stopped dead in its tracks, saving his life. In gratitude, he ordered the construction of the Chapel of Remembrance there, next to the cave where the ancient image was kept.

It's important to distinguish between tradition and history. The oldest legend says that the carving was made by Saint Joseph and painted by Saint Luke, and that it came from Nazareth to the Iberian Peninsula and from there to Portugal around 711; all of this is legendary tradition, without contemporary documentation, and the image hasn't even been subjected to scientific dating tests, so its two-thousand-year age is unproven. Dom Fuas Roupinho is indeed a historical figure—a sailor and warden—but the specific episode of the miracle is known through medieval and later devotional accounts, not through notarial records of the time.

The most certain fact is the existence of the Nazaré sanctuary since the Middle Ages, its centuries-old importance as a place of pilgrimage, and the large pilgrimage on September 8th, which remains very much alive today. The Rosary accompanies the Marian devotion at the sanctuary, although there is no evidence of a specific link to the origin of this devotion.