The Aragonese province of Zaragoza has some localities that, in its toponymy, incorporate "de los Navarros" as Herrera de los Navarros or Villar de los Navarros, even one of the great parishes of the Aragonese capital also has San Miguel de los Navarros as titular. In all cases there are historical and even legendary reasons that explain these facts.

On this occasion we are going to stop in a Marian devotion, that of Nuestra Señora de los Navarros from the town of Fuentes Claras in Teruel, where it has its own sanctuary.

The stories of the shrines and dedications of the Virgin are usually mixed with the devotional and legendary. In general, it is their jozos and novenarios that give us the first written account of all this. It was in 1726 when a Jesuit, Father Juan de Villafañe published his Compendio Histórico in which he gives Noticia de las milagrosas y devotas Imagenes de la Reyna de los cielos y tierra María Santísima que se veneran en los mas celebres Santuarios de España (Historical Compendium in which he gives Notices of the miraculous and devout Images of the King of Heaven and Earth Mary Most Holy that are venerated in the most famous Sanctuaries of Spain). The author narrates countless miracles, following the customs of past centuries and based on manuscripts and printed copies of the same, in addition to the oral transmission from parents to children, in the context of a Spain that continued to be a great consumer of hagiographic stories and spectacular apparitions in so many shrines.

With a similar outline , an Aragonese friar, the Observant Carmelite Father Fray Roque Alberto Faci Agud (1684-1744) did the same with the most famous icons of Christ and Mary in Aragonese lands, in a voluminous volume, coming out of the Zaragozan presses of Joseph Fort, in 1739, with the degree scroll of Aragon, Reyno de Christo y dote de María Santísima founded on the immobile column of Our Lady in his city of Saragossa. Father Faci obtained a Degree in theology, was master of novices and prior, after acquiring the extensive training required of the regulars of his time. As a writer he stood out for his involvement in his readers and activity. He was a hard worker and had an outstanding aptitude for languages. 

At the end of the 18th century, in 1789, a Piarist born in Fuentes Claras, Father Joaquín Ibáñez Gasia (1738-1809) edited the Novenario para implorar el sponsorship de María Santísima Virgen y Madre de Dios que baxo el degree scroll de Nuestra Señora de los Navarros se venera en el lugar de Fuentes Claras (Zaragoza, Francisco Magallón, 1789). From Zaragoza he was assigned to Madrid and developed his teaching in the Chairs of Rhetoric and Philosophy, in the Real high school of San Fernando. On his return to Aragon, he was President of the schools of Peralta and Zaragoza and, during the triennium 1794-1797, Provincial of the Pious Schools of Aragon and Valencia. He stood out as a preacher and as "a man of great instruction and good literary taste with notable displays of wit, wrapped in a traditional language and in a natural and easy style". 

The texts of Faci and Ibáñez collect a series of historical and legendary data that have been copied up to the present day, serving for local histories and more or less in-depth programs of study , such as the volumes of the Year of Mary (1875).

Father Faci writes the following about her: "The image was called before Our Lady of the source, taking the name of one that there is there and waters a garden of the sanctuary, but later this degree scroll was changed in the one of the Navarros on the occasion of a miracle made with some of that Kingdom, as it consists for the constant tradition of Fuentes Claras and its region. Passing some Navarros to Valencia in ancient times, they engaged in a fight among themselves, which stopped when some of them received stab wounds; the wounded, afflicted, appealed for mercy to Mary in her sanctuary of the source and found her so safe and so prompt, that then they were healthy and free from the risk of death that threatened them. The prodigy was so noisy that devotion took occasion to call her Our Lady of Navarre. These, favored, extended a copious alms for the factory of the temple of Our Lady".

The jozos to the Virgin are recorded in this couplet of the event "De una pendencia reñida,/ que los navarros trabaron/ de muerte heridos quedaron/, casi sin aliento y vida;/ mas Vos les dais acogida/ salud y consolación"(From a hard-fought quarrel,/ que los navarros trabaron/ de muerte heridos quedaron/, casi sin aliento y vida;/ más Vos les da acogida/ salud y consolación).

The version of the Piarist Joaquín Ibáñez differs little from that written by Faci, if at all, it incorporates slight variations, such as adding a primitive invocation of the image, that of the Camino, precisely because of the location of the sanctuary on the route from Zaragoza to Teruel, to then go to Valencia. On a second event of 1682, which had as protagonist a family of Navarrese that Father Faci details, the Piarist identifies as a family of Biscayans.

This last event was recorded in the parish documentation, with numerous details. In this case, the family, composed of the father, two sons and a daughter, were having a siesta in the vicinity of the sanctuary, when the brothers got into a quarrel. The father unsheathed a dagger to try to stop the quarrel, hitting the air, but at a certain moment the maiden interposed herself, receiving a very serious wound in the throat. At that moment the dying woman was presented to the Virgin and was suddenly healed.

Another version of the origin of the invocation, gathered more recently and not present in the eighteenth-century sources, indicates that some Navarrese stole the image, realizing, when they were already far from the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love, that the sculpture had disappeared, since it was in its sanctuary, where it had miraculously returned, in an evocation of other very popular Marian legends, such as that of the Virgin of the Way of Pamplona.

The sculpture is medieval, of Romanesque invoice , but already made in the thirteenth century. Its current state shows evidence of restorations and interventions, some of them not very convincing. Father Faci affirms in his book: "it is not an apparition, but it is very old and miraculous. Its antiquity is believed to be the same as that of the place of Fuentes Claras, which is one of the oldest in our Kingdom of Aragon. It is the holy image of wood, is standing and has in his left arm the Holy Child Jesus and in his right hand an apple. Her face is beautiful above all consideration; she is adorned with rich and precious mantles offered for her worship by the devotees grateful for so many favors, as they receive from her liberal hand". The adjective "appeared" indicates that the Marian images were considered in those times as more miraculous and in a certain way celestial, if they had an account of their appearance to people of whatever quality they were, generally shepherds and peasants. As for being an upright image, it does not correspond to reality, since it is a seated icon. What happens is that, when the images were endowed with cloaks and aprons, they were transformed into images that seemed taller and standing. It was a common phenomenon in the devotional practices of the time and the presentation of those venerable icons to the people.

As it could not be otherwise, being a devotional image, there was no lack of prints to spread its cult. We know some woodcuts and intaglio prints, always with the same compositional outline . It presents a clothed image in the form of a basin with apron, mantle, headdress, rostrillo and crown. Next to her pedestal appear the swords and daggers of the fights between the Navarrese, which gave origin to the Marian invocation. There is also a spring with two spouts, near the sanctuary, which is described as "copious, which provides all the necessary water to all the neighboring towns that venerate her".

Professor Santiago Sebastián, in his Inventory of Teruel and its Province, classifies the sanctuary as a 17th century work of masonry, with a single nave and polygonal chancel. The presence of plasterwork must be related to the reform of the building, to which the text we saw by Father Faci alludes. 

The aforementioned Father Roque Alberto Faci in his work, published in 1739, describes it as follows: "Not far from the place of Fuentes Claras, located on the banks of the Jiloca River, Nuestra Señora de los Navarros is venerated. Its magnificent temple is on the royal road to Valencia, for which this sanctuary is known, not only in this country, but also in the distant ones. This has been renovated, a few years ago, to the modern, and is one of the most admirable churches of our Kingdom of Aragon and for devotion to have some flattery and more beautiful temple, to the site of its pleasant nature, added the lush of many poplars that make paradise that sanctuary.

The main feast was secularly celebrated on September 8 and was in position of a confraternity established in his honor. It was commemorated with a great procession and, on the following day, the anniversaries for the souls of the deceased confraternities. On the second day of the Easter of Pentecost, a procession also went to the sanctuary to give thanks for the benefits of the rains, repeating the act on Saturdays in May. 

The cult increased in the XVII century on the occasion of the relief of a great drought in 1648, aggravated by the plague. On that occasion and after numerous petitions, the success of the prayers only came with the transfer of the image to the parish in "devout and penitent procession", in which it was carried by four priests, whose names were recorded in a handwritten chronicle. The canopy was carried by the jurors and persons of distinction of the locality. There was a novena in the month of May and it rained a lot, returning the image to its sanctuary, "and with this public benefit the devotion to Our Lady grew in that town and region. This was the first time that the holy image was taken out of its house". In 1674 the drought and the petitions were repeated, and the town of Calamocha also attended, and the image was again transferred to the parish with great solemnity and rejoicing.

The aforementioned Father Faci also tells us of another miracle. It was in 1698 and its protagonist was the author of the spire of the parish, the master Diego del Campo, who had come from Madrid to make the top of the tower "which is one of the highest and most beautiful in Aragon". The master took a wrong step on a board and seeing himself in mortal danger, he invoked the Virgin of the Navarros, saving himself from certain death. As an ex-voto, the aforementioned master carved some benches that were preserved when Father Faci published his work in 1739.

Nowadays the albadas are famous on the average night of September 7, eve of the feast in honor of the Virgen de los Navarros, which consist, as in other villages of Aragon, in a few songs traditionally sung at night or at dawn, on the occasion of celebrations of all subject, such as weddings, festivals ... etc.. In this case they have a religious and festive character. They are couplets that, when sung, acquire a certain air of jota. Voluntarily, they are sung by the children of the village, with free topic verses, with octosyllables, with assonant rhyme in the pairs. For some time, in the past, between one composition and another, blunderbusses were fired as salvos.