The Legend of Nazaré has it that on the early morning of September 14, 1182, Dom Fuas Roupinho, alcalde of Porto de Mós, Portugal, was out hunting on his domain near the coast, when he saw and immediately began chasing a deer. All of a sudden a heavy fog rose up from the sea. The deer ran towards the top of a cliff, and in the fog Dom Fuas was cut off from his companions. When he realised he was at the edge of the cliff, he recognised the place. He was next to a small grotto where a statue of Our Lady with the Infant was venerated. He prayed out loud "Our Lady, help me." The horse miraculously stopped at the end of a rocky point suspended over the void, the Bico do Milagre (Point of the Miracle), saving the rider and his mount from a drop of more than 100 metres, which would certainly have caused their death. Dom Fuas dismounted and went down to the grotto to pray and give thanks for the miracle. Then he ordered his companions to fetch masons in order to build a small chapel over the grotto, so that the miraculous statue could be easily venerated by all as a memorial to the miracle that saved him. Before walling up the grotto, the masons destroyed the existing altar where among the stones they found an ivory chest containing some relics and an old parchment describing the story of the little wooden statue, one palm high, of Our Lady seated breastfeeding baby Jesus seated on her left leg. According to the parchment the statue must have been venerated since the beginning of Christianity in Nazareth, in Palestine. It was rescued from the iconoclasts in the fifth century by the monk Ciriaco. He brought it to Iberia, to the monastery of Cauliniana near Mérida. It remained there until 711, the year of the battle of Guadalete, when the Christian forces were defeated by the invading Moorish army coming from North Africa. When the news of the defeat arrived at Mérida, the friars of Cauliniana prepared to leave their monastery. Meanwhile, the defeated king, Roderic, who was able to flee the battlefield alone and disguised as a beggar, anonymously asked for shelter at the monastery. When he asked one of the friars, Frei Romano, to hear him in Confession he had to tell him who