Lendas E Narrativas (tomo II)

In the mist-shrouded hills and battle-scarred castles of medieval Portugal, Alexandre Herculano gathered the ghosts of a nation's memory. This second volume of Lendas e Narrativas collects eight tales that pulse with the raw heartbeat of a people forging their identity between the fall of the Visigoths and the wars with Castile. Here, a noble hunter encounters a demon woman with goat feet and loses his soul for love; a ninety-five-year-old warrior charges into impossible odds because honor demands it; a bishop turned black with sin confronts a king excommunicated for imprisoning his own mother. These are not gentle fairy tales. They are stories of faith tested, vows broken, and the terrible weight of oaths sworn in shadowed chapels. Herculano wrote these legends in the 1830s and 40s as Portugal woke from Napoleonic invasion to reinvent itself, reaching back to find what had always made the nation. The result is Romanticism at its most visceral: history transformed into blood and legend.