The Crown of Fire

When the Count returns from a mission from the king, he secretly learns of the love affair. He plans his revenge and decides to organize a fabulous meal, inviting the abbot as guest of honor. While the desserts are being served, the Count orders his vassals to bring the main prize, a red-hot iron mitre with which he crowns the abbot, causing his horrible death.

It is one of the legends that has been transcribed more times in Galician literature. From Father Sarmiento in “Historia y Tradiciones de Galicia”, José Pastor de la Roca in his work “La corona de fuego” or “Los subterráneos de Altamira”, Antonio San Martín in “Horrores del feudalismo: la torre de los vampiros”, Benito Vicetto in “La corona de Fuego” and in “Los Hidalgos de Monforte", Galo Salinas in “Lénda de horrore”: A mitra de ferro ardente”, and the best known of Amor Meilán in “La Corona de Fuego y el Secreto de una Tumba”.

All of them have in common anachronisms and deformations produced through the centuries in the oral tradition. They mix historical characters from different periods such as the VII and VIII Count of Lemos or the abbot García and fray Andrés Pardo, also abbots of San Vicente, secret passages between the fortress and the river Cabe or between the Count's Palace and the Monastery.

Experts dismissed the reality of this story. However, recent studies of the original documentation carried out by the local historian Felipe Aira, show that there was a passageway between the palace and the convent.

The legend is still deeply rooted in Monforte de Lemos today, so much so that the two abbots were considered saints and venerated in the city. To the remains of Fray Andrés Pardo was attributed the healing of ear ailments, a fame that merged with the tradition of San Blas and throat ailments. With the passing of the centuries, the abbot fell into oblivion and the tradition of the ribbons of San Blas prevailed.