“Bathe in nine waves to be blessed with children…”

A Lanzada beach was for many years a place barren women would go to bathe in order to be blessed with children.

Surrounding the chapel of Our Lady of A Lanzada exists a legend associated not only with the chapel itself but with the beach of A Lanzada in general, and which refers to fertility rites.

Tradition has it that bathing in nine waves during a full moon is a remedy for infertility. The ritual can take place on two nights: the eve of the feast of St. John and the last Saturday in August. Women who wanted to have children but could not, for whatever reason, would enter the sea and let nine waves wash over their womb.

The legend says that “the beneficial power of the waves would grant the women’s wishes” and they would be blessed with a son or daughter by submitting to the power of the Atlantic.

“a city submerged in the sea…”

Another of the legends surrounding this place tells of the submerged city of A Lanzada and constructions under the sea. The legend says that a wall of underwater bramble runs from the chapel of A Lanzada to the headland of San Vicente do Mar, showing the way to the O Grove peninsula. This legend reveals the symbolic value of the sea and water as the gateway to the Beyond. The underwater city is the city of the dead and its inhabitants are the mouros and the mouras who, as local tradition has it, are buried in the tombs of A Lanzada’s necropolis. This legend of underwater cities may contain the memory of a settlement or port swallowed up by the sea.

“… to escape the evil eye, make sure the chapel floor is swept…”

If what you want is to escape the evil eye, the chapel floor must be swept at dawn, and not just in any old way. The sweeping process must begin behind the altar, moving round in front of it and tracing a complete circuit around the vault. This must then be repeated three times.