In 1294 at Gruaro, in the Friulian countryside near Portogruaro, a young woman washing linens in the river Lemene found one of the cloths unusually heavy. Unfolding it, she discovered a small consecrated host that someone had attempted to dispose of in the wash. As the host fell from the cloth into her hands, blood began to flow from it into the river. The villagers gathered; the river ran red downstream for hours.
The bishop ordered the relic recovered and translated. A votive shrine — the Pieve di San Giusto in Valvasone, a nearby town to which the relic was carried — has preserved the bloodstained cloth and the small host for seven centuries. The annual procession on the second Sunday of July still commemorates the event.