According to legend...
his life, like his name, would be full of bitterness...
as would be expected for anyone who follows the narrow path of the Lord, in Christian doctrine.
Rich and from a good family, the saint dedicated himself to taking care of the poor, widows and above all the pilgrims who passed through his land of 'Alia'...
asking everyone just one thing: the location of the Earthly Paradise, since it was his great desire to see this sacred garden 'by revelation and by showing that he saw it bodily.'
One night he heard a heavenly voice...
that announced that his wish had been granted...
and that he was told to go out in a boat with company...
without asking where God would take them.
He distributed his goods, keeping only...
what he needed to survive.
-
They set sail...
and after seven months...
they reached the island of 'Terra Deserta'...
where, despite its name, the land was fertile, the women beautiful, but, in contrast, the men ugly.
The heavenly voice ordered Saint Amaro to leave that cursed land of God.
-
He passed through the Red Sea...
going to the land of 'Fonte Clara'...
blessed with all imaginary pleasures.
There men and women lived for three hundred years, being the most beautiful.
But Saint Amaro, alone, heard the heavenly voice again, warning him that if he didn't leave there immediately, his companions would get too used to the place and wouldn't accompany him on his quest anymore.
Soon they found themselves in the 'Mar Coalhado' [gestremde zee]...
where the ship could not move and some sea monsters devoured the corpses of the crew of seven boats that had been immobilized.
Terrified, Saint Amaro raised his voice to the sky, asking for help to the Virgin, Who appeared to him in a Vision in all its heavenly grandeur.
After this vision, another voice was heard, which commanded him to fill the skins with air and to throw them into the sea. The beasts, mistaking the wineskins for men, launched themselves at the skins, creating a breeze strong enough to propel [voortstuwen] away the ship.
-
After three days,,,
they arrived at the 'Desert Island'...
where animals, inexplicably, killed each other on Saint John's day...
and where they found a hermit, who told them to sail to the East...
'from where the sun rises'.
-
Soon...
they arrived at 'Val de Flores'...
where the hermit Leonatis lived...
who, as the name testified, had made friends with the lions.
Saint Amaro left his company to consult with the holy man.
After forty days, the two said goodbye, not without a great pity on the part of Leonatis.
-
When Santo Amaro was gone...
a holy woman, new on the scene, arrived at Leonatis, Baralides...
who had seen the Terrestrial Paradise, offering to the hermit two flowering branches, which had the power to convert every pain into joy.
Saint Amaro, following the orders given to him by Leonatis, left his companions, ordering them to found a city on the spot where they were. Alone, he found a monastery of noble ladies at the foot of a mountain.
Before his arrival, Saint Baralides had visited this monastery, and had announced the saint's imminent visit. There he stayed for seventeen days, at the end of which Baralides asked him to bless her niece Brígida, who had made Amaro a white garment that she had used on her pilgrimage.
Baralides only asked him to give her his old garment...
to serve as a souvenir for her niece.
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