antero de alda | Beiras' province (photography)

ANTERO DE ALDA BEIRAS PROVINCE

Mounteneering villages in the Beiras' province SLIDESHOW

TRADITIONAL VIDEO STORY 2'02

When the goats will graze on in the mountains of Covas do Monte.

ROMANCE OF THE RICH MAN

«Was an old rich man

twice married twice widowed.

Married a poor woman

he took great pride...»

Anthony is 92 years old. He is deaf and mute and never married.

Now he doesn't have cows anymore to help pass the time. He lives alone in Jueus, a small village in Caramulo mountain.

Through the paths which killed the living one…

There was a time when there weren´t any graveyard in the small village of Pena, in the S. Pedro do Sul council, Viseu district.

Anyone who died there, must be buried in Covas do Rio (just below Covas do Monte), to where the coffin had to be taken, whether people carried it or it was carried in a litter through a uphill path.

People say that, one ill-fated day, in one of this trips one of the men who carried the coffin slipped and the coffin fell on top of him… So the frightful bypath was forever known as “the dead´s path that killed the living”.

Truth or just a folk-tale, the truth is that the story reflects perfectly the isolation that even nowadays people live in small villages. Villages in the majestic summits of Arada, S. Macário, Caramulo and Estrela Mountain range…