LEGENDS FROM PORTUGAL / SPOOKY SEASON

At the Curve, They Gave a Dead Woman a Ride

Can ghosts hitchhike with the living?

One of the most mysterious places in Portugal is Sintra. This small town has enchanted and frightened many people who long ago discovered in its woods a quirky, mysterious power. With its micro-climate, Sintra is filled with fog even on the hottest summer days, making the whole place covered in mysticism.

This magic attracted princes, who built castles on its mountain tops and now attract tourists for its romanticism.

It has also attracted writers, being of inspiration to one of the most beautiful names in Portuguese literature, Eça de Queiroz, who has always chosen Sintra as the background scenario for his stories.

One of his books, “O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra” (The Mystery of the Sintra Road), shows how much this place is covered in spookiness. One hardly needs to read the book to wonder what its plot is.

This book, written in the 19th century, seems to have extrapolated its time to have inspired another strange journey.

A journey that most Portuguese still find difficult to understand where reality ends and fiction begins.

Get ready because this story that I am about to tell you, which is one of those myths within the conspiracy theories, is, however, still a reason for travelers to shiver every time they pass the Sintra road.

I am talking about Teresa Fidalgo’s story, a name that causes me anguish just writing it down.

This is due to the simple fact that this name was foreshadowed in one of those thousands of silly messages that say that if you don’t send it to other people, you will die at midnight.

In the era of social media, even though it was still in its infancy, in 2014, the Portuguese Instagram was full of this, and people scared that bad luck was knocking at their door kept spreading that message to everyone.

But those who may have entered this chain of fright and stupidity perhaps didn’t realize that Teresa Fidalgo’s name had been scaring the Portuguese lands for a long time.

And now, this is where the question of reality and fiction comes in.

This name, perhaps of a character — so I want to believe — was part of a short film that is still on Youtube to continue to scare the most frightened.

But for those who also don’t know, the film isn’t based on just nonsense. There is a whole story that inspired it. The legend before the short film says that a group of young women saw a young man lost in the woods, and upon seeing the boy so scared, they gave him a ride.

But the group of friends would have no idea that when they reached a famous curve, the young man called the group’s attention and said:

“Watch out for that curve, because that’s where I had the accident and died!”

In a sort of spiral chain, this act would have consequently led to the accident of this group of girls who all died on that curve.

This original legend remains unexplained.

In 2004, perhaps inspired by the “Blair witch project,” a group of friends went for a road trip at night in the Sintra forest, which was scary in itself.

Just like the legend, just before this curve, called the “Monaco curve” but which could be re-appointed as the “undead curve,” this group of friends will have seen a young woman dressed in white by the side of the road, lost, asking for help.

The friends stopped the car and invited her in. But clearly, what was scary this time was that we were in the digital age, and everything was filmed.

The young girl, Teresa Fidalgo, said the same words:

“ Look out! I died on that curve.”

The film shows the young people’s car having an accident and crashing, ending like this.

The film went viral! And people stopped driving to Sintra! Everyone went bananas! The number of people who believed this was a true story reached a strange number!

But this was a short fiction film made by David Rebordão, a Portuguese director who imitated the style of Blair Witch Project very well.

What ended up happening, on a fine line where art imitates life and life imitates art, is that the short film ended up being pirated and running around the world.

Even in Mexico, discussion groups were created about the film, with lectures being held as something real and supernatural that had happened on a bend in Portugal.

The director was quick to deny it. But Teresa Fidalgo’s story was bigger than his short film, continuing to be shared on the internet until today, often used as proof that ghosts can manifest on the same “plane” as us, the living.

The three-minute film already has more than 17 million views on YouTube alone.

But more than the film, what remains to be commented on is to go back to the original legend.

The legend of the group of girls who helped a young man and that the whole group died on that very turn.

Whether it’s a myth or not, if you’re traveling through Portugal, going around that bend, and suddenly seeing a group of girls asking for help, I would think twice if I really want to open that car door…

Hello, I’m Araci, a female writer from Portugal. I like to write about my country, Portugal. But I also enjoy pop culture, American culture, and cultural differences. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article!

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