**Gau-illa** ::leyendas 
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Many centuries ago, on the banks of the river Deba, lived Beltrán Pérez de Alós, lord of a great stone tower. His life changed forever with the birth of his daughter Usua and the sudden death of his wife just two days later. Time passed, and he married again, but his new wife —proud and cruel— together with her two daughters, turned Usua’s childhood into a silent torment. When Beltrán left for war in Castile, rumors spread throughout the valley: something dark was happening inside the tower, and the girl seemed to fade a little more each day. Two years later, he returned to find Usua gravely ill, unable to speak her truth. Manipulated by his wife, he forced the young girl to marry a man she did not love, and while she traveled to Bidania to begin a new life, Beltrán finally began to suspect the terrible truth. The old innkeeper known as the “Black Raven” fed those suspicions with unsettling revelations, while the stepmother tried to save herself by accusing Usua of a crime she had never committed.
Tension erupted when Beltrán died suddenly. During the solemn “Gau-illa” vigil, while relatives and friends praised the lord’s virtues, Usua arrived in tears to say goodbye, but her stepmother forbade her from approaching the coffin. The young woman lifted her voice and sang a heartbreaking lament that revealed years of mistreatment, lies and shame. Terrified of being exposed, the stepmother urged the orphan boy to kill Usua, but in that very moment something extraordinary happened: Beltrán—believed dead but actually in a state of catalepsy—rose from his coffin to protect his daughter. The next day his true funeral was held, the stepmother and her daughters were sent to a convent, the Black Raven vanished forever, and Usua, finally free, left with her husband to begin a new life in Bidania. Ever since, the legend of Alostorrea remembers Usua as the young woman who broke the silence and reclaimed her destiny.
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