After six years of fire, lava and ash, which began with the eruptions of 1730, the island's Franciscan guardian called the people together to try to calm them, organising a rogation procession that would carry the image of the Virgen de los Dolores out to meet the lava flows.
The fervent procession took up position on the Montaña de Guiguán and there the people solemnly promised to build a chapel to Our Lady if she managed to hold back the devastation that was unfolding. At that moment a man, brave and reckless in equal measure, stepped out ahead of the procession, embraced a cross of pine heartwood and drove it into the ground, while the rest of the islanders wept and prayed, their faith already worn thin.
To their delirium, legend has it that when the river of lava reached the foot of the cross it stopped dead, ceasing to bury new land and veering off towards the petrified slag of earlier eruptions. Such is the human condition that the promises made vanished with the volcano's fumaroles, as soon as the islanders had peace and quiet again.
Tinajo had only a couple of wealthy men, among them Juan Antonio Acosta, father of Juana Rafaela Acosta Umpiérrez, a little goatherd just nine years old. One day the girl was out in the countryside tending the goats when a woman dressed in mourning greeted her kindly and said: “Child, go and tell your parents that the neighbours should keep their promise to build the chapel, for otherwise the volcano will run again”.
Juana's parents did not believe her and punished her, branding her a liar. However, days later the girl again came across the woman in black, who repeated the same message. The girl refused, knowing what her parents' reaction had been the first time. They say that at that point the woman placed her hand on the girl's shoulder and said to her: “Go, now they will believe you”.
The trace of the hand of the woman in black remained imprinted, according to the legend, on Juana's shoulder. Her parents were astonished and speechless at the sight of the slender, well-proportioned hand on the girl's shoulder. Straight away they took Juana Rafaela to the main church to show her the various images of the Virgin, and in that of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores the girl recognised the woman in mourning.
From that moment on, all the neighbours, rich and poor alike, set about building the chapel promised in those by then almost distant days of anguish and desolation. Completing the work would take around 10 years.