The image on the front is the Galo de Barcelos, or the Rooster of Barcelos. The Rooster of Barcelos is a Portuguese folk tale that tells the story of a dead rooster's miraculous intervention in proving the innocence of a man who had been falsely convicted and sentenced to death.
According to the legend, a landowner in Barcelos had silver stolen from his property, and the townspeople were searching for the thief. A man from Galicia became a suspect despite his pleas of innocence. The Galician insisted that he was merely passing through Barcelos on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela to fulfil a promise. Despite this, he was arrested and condemned to death.
After being sentenced, the man asked to be taken before the judge who had condemned him. The judge was attending a banquet. The man pointed to a roasted rooster on the banquet table and declared, "It is as certain that I am innocent as that rooster will crow when they hang me." The judge pushed aside his plate, deciding not to eat the rooster, but otherwise ignored the man's appeal.
When the pilgrim was hanged, the roasted rooster stood up on the table and crowed, just as he had predicted. Realizing his mistake, the judge rushed to the gallows and discovered that the man had been saved because the knot in the noose had been poorly tied. The man was immediately freed.
Years later, the pilgrim returned to Barcelos to carve the
Cruzeiro do Senhor do Galo (Cross of the Lord of the Rooster) in gratitude to the Virgin Mary and Saint James. The monument can still be seen today in the Barcelos Archaeological Museum.
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