Enchanted Moura
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.
)[citation needed] 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”.
[clarification needed] The legends describe mouras encantadas as young maidens of great beauty or as charming princesses who are "dangerously seductive".
Mouras encantadas are magical maidens who guard castles, caves, bridges, wells, fountains, rivers, and treasures.
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.
[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.
In other fairy tales, a moura encantada lives in a castle under the earth and falls in love with a Moor instead of the Christian knight.
In the historical context, these places, people and events are situated in the real world and in a specific time frame.
The Pedra Formosa found on Citânia de Briteiros was, according to folklore, brought to this place by a moura who carried it on her head while she was spinning with a spindle.
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.
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.
[21] 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).
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.
In some legends it is on Saint John's day that the moura encantada spreads figs or a hank of yarn on a large rock, in the moonlight.
These legends are possibly related with the popular tradition of, in some regions, of harvesting the “figo lampo” (a type of white fig that were offered as a gift in Saint John's day).
This day marks the date of the summer solstice, its reference is perhaps reminiscent of some pagan sun-worship or spring time deity referenced as "São João o verde" (St.John, the green one).
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.
