The Legend
A bit of history..…
The archives of the Bishopric of Tui show that in the 17th century there were more than 250 families living in the parish of Fofe, and its most prosperous business was the cultivation of rye, wheat and maize. The mills still found today along the course of the river serve as a reminder of those times.
Fofe served as a stopover on the trade routes that extended from the Ribeiro region to the coasts. Thanks to the continuous transit of goods, the entire Paradanta region soon started to thrive and became a nice place to live. The increase in population meant that the Church had to assign more parish priests to the locality, and so it was necessary to build a Great Rectory House to house seven priests.
The current Rectory of Fofe was built over the ruins of the former rectory.
Its restoration began in 1996, aiming first and foremost to respect the original structure of the house, thus making its interior one of the loveliest rural accommodations in Galicia.
The legend..…
Legend has it that when the last of the parish priests lived in the Rectory, the house was raided by bandits. Armed with blunderbusses, they entered through the main atrium with the intention of robbing and getting rid of anyone who got in their way. Alerted by the housekeeper, the priest awoke in the middle of the night and, with no way to escape, devised a plan to trick the bandits. When they entered the priest’s quarters, they found only two frightened women who knelt before them begging for mercy. One of them was none other than the priest himself disguised in his maid’s clothes, who successfully saved himself from certain death.