Galo de Barcelos (Barcelos' Rooster)

I guess by now you all are fed up with stories from my early years, so I'll try and post about something different.

Many years ago, legend has it, in the town of Barcelos people were restless on account of a crime that went unpunished. In those days a pilgrim from Galicia came by claiming to be heading to Compostela.
This made no sense to the locals, after all Compostela is in Galicia and Barcelos is way south, in northern Portugal.
The locals assumed the stranger was lying because no man would take such a detour to reach Compostela.
Why? What reason would lead a stranger to come up with such nonsense?
Simple, he had to be the criminal they couldn’t find! So they blamed the crime on the pilgrim and the judge sentenced him to be hanged.
On the day he was to be hanged he asked to be taken back to the judge who had sentenced him.
When they got there the judge was having lunch. On the table was a roasted rooster.
The pilgrim then said: “ I am innocent. And that rooster will sing while you hang me, as proof of my innocence!”
They all laughed at him, but out of fear nobody dared to touch the roasted rooster.
The moment they were hanging the man, the rooster stood up and sung.
The judge rushed to the hanging place where he found the pilgrim hanging from the tree, but the noose was loose and the man was still alive.
Everybody apologized to the pilgrim and he was sent free. One year later the man went back to Barcelos and ordered a monument to be built to the Virgin and to Santiago.

And this is the reason we have those awful roosters that most tourists buy almost everywhere in Portugal.
I don't like those roosters and I don't really like this legend either, but there is no way one can tell Portuguese legends and skip this one.