The legend of the capture of the castle from the Moors, told by João António de Saldanha Oliveira e Sousa (1901-1972), who signed as "Marquês de Rio Maior", being the third holder of that title. From the full narrative that can be read at the bottom (PDF), we have tried to summarize it in a few lines:
The last Moorish lord of the castle of Alfeizerão, Emir Aben-Hassan, had a daughter named Zaira who was a young woman of great beauty and whom everyone knew as the "Flor de Alfeizerão". Zaira had been raised as a daughter by the slave Axa, who one night has two distinct and distressing dreams in which the beautiful Axa intervenes. The slave resorting to a soothsayer to understand them, her explanations announce two different fates for her daughter at heart, either the castle resisted the attack of the Christians and Zaira was killed by those warriors for being there watching the walls or the castle he would succumb to the arms of the Christian knights without Zaira suffering any damage from the clash of the weapons. Axa's heart chooses life for her Zaira, even if it means her people's defeat and subjugation. But fate overshadowed the fate of Zaira, because when the Christians stormed the castle and took it with great speed and violence, the Emir Aben-Hassan climbs with his daughter to the highest tower of the castle, and surprising the scale of the defeat and the suffering of his people and fearing that Zaira would fall into the hands of his enemies, he embraces her and they both fall into the abyss. The castle was in the hands of the Christians, but in that place they remain, according to the beliefs, two ghosts from the time of the Moors whose voices echo in its foundations, that of the slave Axa who mourns her beautiful girl whom she lost in her eagerness to see her saved and intact. and that of a young Moor, in love with the young woman, who had fallen asleep dreaming with her olive eyes, neglecting the watch on the walls, which the Christians had taken advantage of to climb without warning to take the Emir Aben-Hassan's fortress by surprise.
«It is a current legend in the village that the name of Alfeizerão comes from the fact that, after the Arabs mistreated and robbed the inhabitants of Casal, they complained to King Afonso Henriques, who was then in Alcobaça, giving him The king answered them the following: “Go in peace, and the Moors will go away!”.
(CARVALHAES, José, "Roman antiquities of Alfazeirão", in O Archeologo Português, Vol. VIII, no. 4, p. 93, Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional, 1903)
NAt that time, there was still no electricity in Alfeizerão, as in general in the municipality of Alcobaça.
Public lighting was done with oil lamps, large and beautiful, placed in the corners. In this respect, the country was very backward and the Municipality was not a glaring exception, despite the fact that the electric light was inaugurated in the county seat in 1905, in fact, in the same year as Barcelos, as a relative of ours from Nine [Barcelos] reminded us. ].
The “Camafego” , grandfather of Manuel Vizoso, who was President of the Junta a few years ago, was the one who every day went next to each lamp, with a ladder and with a measure, to pour the necessary amount of oil to satisfy one night's needs. With one lamp lit, Camafego moved on to the next.
At one point, out of sheer trickery, someone found a bunch of paper wrapped around strings and with a tip pretending to be a detonator wire, which he hung on a lamp. When Camafego climbed up to the lamp and when he saw what looked like a bomb, he promptly got down and commented in a loud voice: “Whoever put you there, let him light you up!”.
That night there was no public lighting in Alfeizerão.
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