Pages from Historia do movemento obreiro galego (in Galician) by Reimundo Patiño depicting the Viking attack on Burela and the miraculous prayers of Abbot Rosendo. (Seen in the museum next to San Martín de Mondoñedo, along the Camino Natural de San Rosendo.)
In the quiet hills of northern Galicia, far from today’s roaring highways, legends still echo of fire and salt water. Around the 10th century, Viking fleets probed the Galician coast, their dragon-headed ships a terror to fishing villages and monasteries alike. One of the most dramatic tales unfolds at Burela, where the monks watched in fear as the invaders closed in.
Here the figure of San Rosendo, abbot and later bishop, takes center stage. The story tells how, while others despaired, Rosendo fell to his knees in prayer. Each prayer, says the legend, sent another Viking ship to the bottom of the sea. For the people of Galicia, this was not just a miracle but a sign that faith and courage could turn the tide against overwhelming force.
We encountered this legend in a striking form: as pages from a comic book by Galician artist Reimundo Patiño. Patiño’s black-and-white panels roar with energy. His Vikings crash ashore like a nightmare, the monks cry out in terror, and Rosendo raises his arms as ships sink with a thunderous “BROUM.” It is history reimagined through popular art: a medieval miracle retold with the raw power of 20th-century graphic expression.
In Burela and its surroundings, the past is never just quiet stone—it is still alive, sometimes in the boldest of images.
Further Reading
Ann Christys, Vikings in the South: Voyages to Iberia and the Mediterranean (Bloomsbury, 2015) – overview of Viking raids beyond northern Europe, including Galicia.
Xosé Ramón Barreiro Fernández, Las incursiones normandas en Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, 1974) – classic study on Viking attacks along the Galician coast.
Inés Monteira Arias, Os viquingos en Galicia (Edicións Xerais, 2007) – an accessible Galician-language introduction to the subject.
Simon Coupland, “The Vikings in Francia and Iberia” in The Viking World (Routledge, 2008) – places the Galician experience in a broader European context.
