Great-grandmother prays daily to Lord of the Rings figurine after mistaking it for saint

Elrond, Lord of Rivendell Credit: Facebook/Gabriela Brandão

A Brazilian great-grandmother has been praying to a Lord of the Rings figurine every day after mistaking it for a saint.

The elderly woman wrongly believed that her miniature statue of an elf called Elrond who is Lord of Rivendell in the popular books by JRR Tolkien, was Saint Anthony.

The great-grandmother prayed to the statue every day. Credit: Facebook/Gabriela Brandão

The mistake was revealed on Facebook by Gabriela Brandão, the mother of the woman's great-granddaughter, who branded it "the funniest discovery of 2016".

Ms Brandão, a freelance makeup artist from Florianópolis in the south-east of the country, tried to explain the mistake to the elderly woman, but according to BuzzFeed, it took a little bit of explaining.

An image of St Anthony in a Brazilian church. Credit: PA

“We tried to explain right away but she didn’t understand at first,” Ms Brandão told the website.

“The next day we explained again and she understood and we got her a new figure of Saint Anthony.

"It’s the funniest thing that ever happened to me.”