The Aljubarrota Baker

Her full name was Brites de Almeida and she was so ugly and so enormous that she looked like a man. In fact, every profession she had were men’s activities, in such a way that, very soon in her childhood, she banished her female condition.

It is said that she was born in the city of Faro. Her parents were very humble and poor people, living in a tavern where they worked. After her birth, her parents were quite happy for she really looked like a boy and her help in the tavern would be very welcomed as she was a very strong child with a curious particularity: six fingers in each hand. Soon, she revealed her natural tendencies for fighting and was always looking for trouble. She would rather be fearlessly fighting other children than helping her father and mother at work. 

Brites would be twenty years old when she became an orphan. She didn’t worry too much about that fact because it gave her the opportunity to become independent and self-sufficient. So, after selling all that she had, she left her hometown and travelled across the country. She met lots of different people, had an adventurous life and sometimes, even had to sleep in the streets. Her fighting skills became famous for she was very good with weapons, especially the sword.

Someday, she met a portuguese soldier who fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. As she didn’t want to loose her independence she made one single condition. He would have to fight her and win so that they could get married.  The duel was terribly violent and the soldier ended up bleeding almost to death. She had to run away and hide. So, she sailed to Africa but the ship was caught by pirates and she was sold as a slave. With the help two other Portuguese slaves, she managed to escape and sailed her way back to Portugal on boat. But once again, faith played another game on her. The boat was caught in a ravaging storm and crushed by the sea shore of Ericeira.

Back on Portuguese land and believing that Justice was still looking for her she disguised herself as a man which was really easy as her body was very mannish.

As she was tired of living a life of fights and robberies, she decided to settle down and started to work as a baker. Time went on and on and finally she owned the baking business and married a farmer, probably as strong as her.  And then began the legend.

It was on August, the 14^th, 1385. The war between Portuguese and Spanish was raging and the call that was still alive within her soul and heart was reborn. As the Spanish hordes jumped across the Portuguese borders and came very close to Aljubarrota, she took up arms and joined the Portuguese troops to expel the invaders. Once again the battle was terrible, but once again the Portuguese were successful. Back at home, all covered with blood, as she was getting closer to her bakery, Brites had this strange feeling that something was wrong. The door to the bakery’s oven was abnormally closed. Seven foreign soldiers were hidden inside the baker’s oven waiting for the nightfall. One by one, she summoned all the seven Spanish soldiers to step out of it, and as they were slowly getting out...she hit them so hard and violently with her baker’s shovel that she killed them all.

After that episode, leading a numerous number of women, Brites restlessly chased all around the county spanish rebel soldiers who were hiding in the villages nearby. So became a symbol of the resistance against the invaders.

The legend says that after that episode she had a quiet, harmonious and dedicated life with her husband embracing the baking and farming business. And, although what happened was of an unspeakable, barbaric violence, Brites became a symbol of our kingdom’s independence.