Legend of the Portuguese Cockerel

Portugal Rooster

One day the inhabitants of a small village were quite alarmed with a series of crimes and were even more upset since they could not discover the criminal. 

One day there appeared an outsider who instantly became their prime suspect. The authorities seized him and in spite of all his oaths of innocence nobody believed him. Nobody thought his story was credible - that he was on his way to worship a well known saint in a nearby town, St. Tiago.

He was condemned to death by hanging. As a last request before his execution, he asked to be brought once more into the presence of the judge who had condemned him. The convicted man declared again his innocence and in the presence of many others, he pointed to a roasted rooster on the table exclaiming: "My innocence is as certain as the roasted rooster will cry, if I should be hung." 

Everybody laughed at him, but what had seemed impossible, became reality... at the very moment the man was to be hung the roasted rooster stood up on the table and began crowing. 

Nobody doubted any more the innocence of the condemned man. They hurried to the gibbet and saw the poor man with the rope around his neck. But a free knot had avoided his suffocation. Immediately he was set free. Some years later, he returned again to Barcelos and built a monument in praise of St. Tiago and the Holy Virgin and the miracle that saved his life. 

“Galo de Barcelos” - the Portuguese rooster - is now the national symbol of Portugal. 

 It symbolizes honesty, integrity, trust and honour.