Chapter 2 St James´Rooster

“Feudal Galicia, hmm . . . What do you know about

Diego Gelmirez?”

Peter Callaghan was sitting upon the desk, not behind it, and that at least gave Laura some measure of confidence. But the question invited a huge discursion. So many things. Where to start?

They were in the old university beside the Market. The building alone intimidated Laura but she knew she had to get over it. Here for a year or more was to be her home, despite her paucity of Spanish, and even though she was taking classes in Gallego, she knew that she was very much the

outsider here. Peter, despite his Irish background, spoke both fluently, and
Portuguese too. Laura had not even passed the point where she could tell
where Portuguese ended and Gallego began, excepting that the latter had
a softer sound. Not that that matters when you can’t really understand
either very well.

This discussion luckily was in English, thank God.

“Well, I know that he was not born into the aristocracy, that his father
was Gelmirio, which is where he gets his patronymic, and that Gelmirio
was the administrator of the castle of Torres del Rio, just south of Padron
where the legends state that St. James was brought ashore.”
Laura looked at her advisor for encouragement but found none. Callaghan’s
work was one of the main reasons she had made this decision: to come
back to Santiago and add a Ph.D. to a list of already impressive credentials.
Some of her advisors were impressed with her knowledge. But clearly Dr.
Callaghan was not amongst them. She had read some of his books: Feudal
Galicia was his best known. She realised that what she had said, in hope
of some sort of encouragement, was not enough. Obviously more was
expected. The silence was too long.
“Um . . . I know that he was educated at the school near the cathedral,
or . . . was it a just a church then?”
A non-committal nod prompted her to go on.
“I believe he then went on to finish his education at the court of the king
in Leon . . . Alfonso VI?”
“Mmhm.”
“And then he returned to Santiago. The king’s son-in-law, Raymond chose
him to be his secretary in, I think, about 1093 or so.”
Laura looked around the office. There was a window overlooking the
valley of the River Sar in the distance
she could see the Seminario Mayor on the other side of the valley: now a
pilgrims’ hospice. The group had stayed there last year for a while. Felix
had proposed to Laura on the front steps late one chilly autumn evening,
and she had accepted without giving it a second thought. It had seemed as
though their meeting on the Camino was meant to be.
“Who was Raymond?” He brought her back to the discussion at hand.
“He was related to Constance of Burgundy who became Alfonso’s queen.
Alfonso rewarded him with a sort of “dukeship” of Galicia. Anyway he
was very powerful in the north west of Alfonso’s kingdom and somehow
Diego Gelmirez seemed the right man for the job, first as secretary then
as bishop of Compostela.
“Diego Gelmirez,” mused her tutor. “Now this is the man we have to talk
about, I think.” The Irish brogue came out. But not the Irish smile she
had hoped for.
Laura was losing her nerve. Diego Gelmirez. What she was saying sounded
so basic. Her tutor had seemed very approachable around her dinner table
last night and now she just felt a bit of a fool. She wished he would give
her some sort of feedback. Instead he said:
“Go on.”

“Well, Alfonso knew of Bishop Diego Peláez, of course, because the bishop

was consecrated by his brother, Sancho. But Alfonso overthrew Sancho
because he wanted to become lord of Galicia as well as Castilla and Leon.
He, Diego, that is . . .”
“Which Diego?”
You know bloody well which Diego, she thought, but added:
“Diego Peláez was the bishop of Compostela from about 1075 through to
1088. He began the cathedral. Lots of people think it was Diego Gelmirez
who built it . . .” She caught Callaghan’s eye for interruption, but it didn’t
come, “but it wasn’t. He only picked up where Diego Peláez left off, and
many years after. The first Diego was accused of treason and thrown into
prison. The Historia Compostelana doesn’t say much about him, but they
do hint that there may have been some sort of plot along with Count
Diego Ovéquiez to hand Galicia over to the Normans.”
“Anyone in particular?”
Laura was feeling faint. It was said that Diego Peláez wanted to treat with
the Normans. She knew that the evidence of Diego Peláez so-called treason
was slim, but she also knew that she only had the Historia Compostelana
to draw upon and she said as much.
“Why would a Spanish bishop want to treat with the Normans?”
She knew she was on shaky ground. There was even a story that a daughter
of William the Conqueror may have once been betrothed to the Spanish
king Alfonso the Sixth; even that she may have had some sort of prior
understanding with his brother Sancho, or even Garcia the youngest
who was once King of Galicia, but later Garcia had fled his country and
taken refuge in Sevilla which was under Moorish occupation. When he
tried to make peace with his brother Alfonso, the latter had him arrested

and he spent the rest of his days locked up in one of Alfonso’s castles.

Sancho was murdered probably on the king’s orders. It all made no sense,
especially as the daughter had died en route to her marriage with Alfonso
the brother . . . what was her name? How could this have affected the fate
of Galicia? She didn’t know and the only thing to do was admit as much.
“I don’t know,” she said meekly.
“No-one knows,” said Peter Callaghan, “but it’s a grand story don’t you
think?”
Somehow Laura didn’t know if she had triumphed or failed.

Laura looked around at the office and its cedar panelling. It was clearly

of the 18th century and lined with books. But how many belonged to
her tutor? She thought probably not many but that didn’t decrease the
intimidation factor.

“The problem is Lara . . .”

“Laura.”
“The problem, Laura, is that we have a lot of information about Diego
Gelmirez but it’s all from the Historia Compostelana which was his “spin”
if you like. He commissioned it. There are three possible authors. But
when it comes right down to it, they wrote it to glorify Diego Gelmirez
and the things he did, which were not insubstantial by any means. Laura,
the man was a monster, but he was a genial monster with a shrine to
protect and a city to build, and in that he was bloody good at his job.
Once you start to research him further, you may have the same grudging
respect for him as I do.
“We have an appointment tomorrow afternoon, am I right?”
“Yes,” said Laura wondering what time was the first flight back to Bristol
from Lavacolla, Santiago’s airport.

.

St James Rooster continues...

Felix didn’t look forward to the dinner party. It wasn’t that he was shy (far from it). It wasn’t even that he doubted his abilities in Spanish (he did). It was more the fact that all six invited were Laura’s fellow graduate students and professors from the university and here he felt a bit at a loss. A lot at a loss.

“What am I going to talk to them about?” he said.

 

“Oh Felix,” said Laura as she planted a kiss on his ginger beard (did she see the grey hairs appearing?)“No-one expects you to talk “medieval”. What would Miranda say? ‘Be Yourself!”

Miranda and Kieran had walked with them last year along the Camino.

 

When they started he had known Kieran for many years and he had seen their love grow (almost eclipsed by his own) in the last 100 or so kilometres. Now Miranda was about to give birth at any time and despite the remission of Kieran’s leukaemia, he knew that they must sometimes think of their time together as somewhat borrowed. He reminded himself of that now.

 

“You’re right. That old Felix charm. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.”

 

But the look on her face told him that both were really wondering at this point.

 

“Well, whatever,” Laura said vaguely. “Good food to be had though!”

 

That at least increased Felix’s spirits considerably.

* * *

“The thing is,” said Peter Callaghan, after the main fish course had beenenjoyed by all, “that despite all the hype about the Camino, Compostelas and stuff, that none of it has any basis in history. In fact, prior to the 7th

century, anyone who was anyone claimed that if James preached here at all, he had virtually no converts and anyway he went back to Jerusalem where he was beheaded and his body thrown outside the city walls. End of St. James. Sorry,” he said, looking around to see if he offended anyone’s religious sensibilities.

 

“Ah, but you forget,” said one of the Spanish professors (what’s his name? thought Felix)

 

“Stone boat, winds of providence, miracles . . .”

 

Everyone around the table laughed. Felix topped up the wine glasses, and Dr. Callaghan of Dublin continued.

 

“Nice story! Why interfere with it? You can be sure the Cathedral won’t!”

 

“Nor the Xunta de Galicia,” said someone else.

 

“Of course not.” Felix was surprised to hear that the voice was Laura’s.

 

He was delighted to see that she was issuing forth from the kitchen with some sort of yummy-looking dessert. “With thousands, tens of thousands of people, tourists coming here every year, why interfere with a profitable

myth . . . ?”

 

“That’s the sad part,” said someone else (was it the same someone else?

 

Felix had to remind himself that the Ribeiro and Albariño wines were strong—especially in their cheap state which was all they could afford).

 

“Do you mean to say,” said another someone else, “that the Xunta knowingly encourages tourism on the basis of St. James even though they know it is a lie?”

 

“Now, hold on now . . .” said yet another someone else.

 

“Coffee anyone?” said Felix.

* * *

“You didn’t add much to the conversation last night,” Laura said to Felix as he prepared for his English class that day.

 

No,” said Felix.

* * *

“Felix. Felix! Look at this! Just in from Miranda and Keiran.”

 

Laura was in front of the laptop, Internet established only that day (blasted Telefónica!).

 

Grabbing Felix’s elbow with the force of a vice grip she pulled him so close to the screen that he could hardly see the picture: Miranda heavily pregnant and Kieran grinning, sporting a fine fuzz of hair after his chemotherapy, his hand on Miranda’s bump. In his other hand there was a copy of his book Pilgrimage to Heresy, finally accepted by a small but influential Irish publisher.

 

“Typical!” said Felix, “Trust the boyo to get both things right at once.” But there was great affection in his voice.

St James´Rooster: Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Felix and Laura

Anyone who thought that Laura was quiet and submissive had never taken a good look at her chin. So thought Felix as he watched his bride of six weeks move her way around the apartment, and stand, as she did now, in front of the window with its view of the old city and a glimpse of the cathedral. The old town of Santiago lay beneath and around and for once, it wasn’t raining.

“Do say yes,” she said.

It wasn’t the first they had seen that day. In Felix’s opinion, not the best either. To his mind it was poorly furnished, dark, pokey, and expensive. But it was slap in the middle of the historic centre, and he knew better than argue too much.

“What about the one close to the new university? It was almost half the price and twice the size.”

Laura’s response told him he might as well forget it.

“Yes, but it lacked atmosphere!”

She had him there. This one had “atmósfera” in plenty despite its dark precincts, and ridiculous price tag. Santiago with its pilgrims passing daily, with its strange accents and ancient, poignant charm lay under the window she was leaning out of.

Felix knew he was beaten. Her smile told him that.

And that smile . . . that angelic, quiet determination, that often hidden intelligence had seduced him in its many quiet ways less than a year ago.

On “The Camino de Santiago”. Felix was so taken aback by its unexpected depth and charm that he had proposed almost as soon as they reached Santiago. He had walked 750 kilometres, well almost—there were a few still excused bus rides to be accounted for. She had walked less than 200 but none of that mattered. Once he had thought that love would pass him by forever, especially after Jessie his fiancée had been killed in a car accident. But now he knew it was time to live again, and Laura had taught him how. By being Laura. By being ultimately lovable.

“OK,” he said.

The real estate agent knew his stuff. He had taken them to this place earlier in the day. Even criticised it in some ways: small, expensive, no parking, but just look at that view!

Felix still thought of himself as a bit of a freeloader. After all, they were there because Laura was pursuing her doctorate at the University of Santiago in Medieval History and Felix, though a psychology grad, had only teaching English to offer. But Laura had somehow (was it those long lashes, those big brown eyes?) secured a very desirable scholarship, and, well, after six weeks of marriage, here they were. Back once more in Santiago de Compostela in the wettest part of Spain.

It wasn’t raining today which was a rare condition in itself. As they left the centuries-old building on the Rua do Vilar, the agent said: “Well?”

“When can we move in?” Felix said, accepting defeat with good grace and receiving his wife’s radiant grin as a reward.

“As soon as you wish,” the agent said. “As I told you, the owners live overseas, and it has been, well, somewhat unoccupied for quite a while.

If you want to come over to my office this afternoon, I will draw up the lease. You will be able to give me a month’s deposit today, yes? We keep that until the time you move out as a security against anything being . . .

um . . . missing?”

As if anyone would want it, thought Felix, but he said nothing.

Laura brushed her long brown hair out of her eyes. She was animated.

Ready for action.

“Right, I’ll go back to the Hostal Alameda and tell Antonio that we will be leaving this weekend. Will that be alright?” It was the agent she spoke to, not Felix.

“Perfect,” he said, “and if there is anything else I can do for you . . . .”

Felix was thinking towels, bedding, pots, pans, plates, but decided to leave that for Laura.

* * *

In fact, Felix wouldn’t have cared where they lived just so long as they were together. He was standing outside the real estate agent’s office. It was just five o’clock and a sudden downpour had just swept through and passed on, as rain always seemed to do in Santiago. Felix liked rain. 

He especially liked the smell of the streets after a storm and he was inhaling deeply and thinking deep delighted thoughts. When Laura appeared with their cases—few enough: the Camino had taught them to travel light—he couldn’t quite suppress a smile of complete besottedness just at the sight of her.

“What?” Laura said, seeing his face.

“Nothing,” said Felix knowing that his giddiness in love gave him away.

The paperwork was easy, the fees were handed over, and Felix suddenly found a key in his hand, a big key, an old-fashioned key. He expressed his concerns.

“Oh don’t worry about that. We are an old city. We have old values. Crime is minimal. You two will be safe inside your four walls.

Had he said “lovenest” Felix wouldn’t have been surprised. Romanticism was imbedded in the fabric of Compostela.

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The simply beautiful and atmospheric painting is by Paco Quirri. I looked for a web address to ask for permission to use it but couldn´t find any reference, so Paco, I hope you don´t have any objection...

The Joy of Blog

Click image to enlarge

One of things about this Blogging thing I find most gratifying is the extraordinary number of nationalities of my visitors. Not all are drawn because of the Camino de Santiago connections either although my post on The Scallop Shell of Love is probably one of the most popular. Another one is Trasna: The Crossing Place, a beautiful poem by Sister Rafael Considine. I was at a local flea market once and noticed a painting on canvas of a simple wooden bridge and a path leading onwards around trhe corner and into the trees. "That's Trasna!" I said. It put me in mind of the ancient bridge you encounter by the shrine just heading out of Tui on the Camino Portuguese. I bought it of course, and now it is on the stairs just as you enter the pilgrim loft at The Little Fox House. My series of LIVE blogs from the Camino Portuguese also attract a fair number of visitors. I have walked the Frances, the Aragones, and a goodly stretch from Le Puy and I can never repeat my first Camino experience,(although I did relive it writing Miranda's story in Pilgrimage to Heresy) but I still recommend the Portuguese as a good first Camino. The albergues are never crowded, the terrain is gentle, the food is good (and the beer is cheap!) and the people are very helpful. It was on the Camnino Portuguese that I met my friend Fernanda who opens her home and her heart to pilgrims every day of the year just 22 klms from Barcelos. I have been back several times to see her and always am welcomed as one of the family. So very special! In fact, it has been folks like Fernanda, Jacinto and Mariana their dancing daughter, and Rebekah Scott and Paddy at Moratinos on the Camino Frances who inspired me to move to the Camino de Muxia and open my own home to pilgrims despues (after) they have finished their Camino. A Casa do Raposito (The House of the Little Fox) is my attempt to "give back" to what the Camino has taught me. The idea of opening a "Post-Camino Sanctuary" has been in my mind for 13 years now, but I needed to see how to do it - i.e. not as an albergue but as a form of "homestay" before I could make my decision to pull up (very shallow) roots in Marbella and dig a deep hole here in Carantona. I love it! So back to my stats: there are 21 countries represented today. Twenty One! And that doesn't include the "unknowns" or the others who have visited before: Korea, Russia, Japan, other countries in Africa and S.E. Asia and S. America. I’ve had visitors from India and Saudi Arabia and even a few from The Vatican! At times the Canadian number is much higher, and at one time I was getting a full 25% visitors from Australia. It is a seasonal thing. Americans remain the highest with a generally high proportion of visitors from the UK. Believe me, I think about each visitor and picture your surroundings as you enter my world. You are all very much appreciated; all 11,000 plus of you in two and a half years. I hope one day to meet you at The Little Fox House, but please don't all come at once. There are only 14 people in the whole village! I am currently putting the final touches to the manuscripts of two books, St James' Rooster - my novel which concerns first archbishop of Santiago, Diego Gelmirez - and The Indalo Quest. Both of these will be available in English in June and as El Gallo de Santiago, "Rooster" will be published in Spanish in September. I hope you will join me on those journeys too. I shall be continuing to blog about the History and Mystery Tours in the Costa da Morte, something I hope to be offering to those of you who can pass my way. There is so much of natural beauty, culture and history here I just have to share. The next one will be about Castros: those vestiges of a Celtic past which can be found all over Galicia and particularly here on the Costa da Morte. In the meantime, please do keep coming. And remember to leave a comment as feedback is every writer's reward. 

The ship that never should have been...

If you just did a double take at the odd design of this ship maybe you might like to ask yourself why. Yes, that is a separate deck below and those odd –looking round things are actually gun turrets. The HMS Captain was a ship designed to revolutionize battle at sea. Within months she would lay on the bottom of the ocean off Cape Finisterre. This is her story.  

Unlike the Prestige or even the Serpent, I doubt you will have ever have heard it before. Yet she took almost 500 human souls – including that of her inventor's – to a watery grave off the Costa da Morte.

The HMS Captain should never have been built; but she was, though not without controversy. In fact, she became the result of a highly public dispute between Captain Cowper Coles, her designer who invented her revolving turrets, and the director of naval construction, Edward Reed, who insisted she was unstable and potentially dangerous. Coles had discovered the possibilities of floating rafts with shielded guns on a turntable during the Crimean War, but had remained on half-pay since then, promoting his inventions to Parliament and the press. Coles was ambitious and he was determined. Despite Reed's resistance, and the fact that Coles had already built a rigged ship with similar turrets – the HMS Monarch, which was of a different size and design entirely - Coles had enough clout with the Admiralty and with the public to get the chance to build a masted turret ship to suit his own fancy. With enormous public pressure and the backing of Parliament, the project got the nod in 1867.

From the outset, the construction of the ship was problematic. Coles was ill during much of the construction and supervision was lax at best. Once completed, she was 740tons over her designed weight and so sat much lower in the water than her design allowed for. In fact, the main deck was often awash even in light seas. The Captain had a high centre of gravity due to her towering rig which was attached to the upper deck, thus justifying Reed's concern about her stability.

At first, it appeared that Coles was right in his claims that this was the ship of the future. She made a couple of successful short round trips to Vigo before joining the Channel fleet. But later, the commanding admiral who visited the ship during a voyage of the often treacherous Bay of Biscay remarked that the turret deck appeared to be perpetually awash (which if you look again at the picture is hardly surprising).

On the night of Sept. 6, 1870, while sailing off Cape Finisterre in a freshening gale, the Captain abruptly capsized and sank like a stone. She took with her 473 of her crew, including her captain, and Coles, who was on board as an observer on the voyage. Perhaps we should add, thankfully, as he did not survive to see what his stubbornness had done. There were only 18 survivors of the disaster, all of whom made it to a boat which which had pulled free of the sinking ship. They were rescued late the following day.

The Captain affair became a long-lived naval controversy, and immediate steps were taken to improve the stability of warships built for the Royal Navy. Within decades, sail became a thing of the past though not before several equally strange looking vessels were brought before the Admiralty.

If you go to St. Paul’s Cathedral you will see the Captain remembered in two side-by-side memorial plaques. The list of names seems to go on and on…

Arthur Hawkey, author of HMS Captain remarks on the book's cover:

"On 30 April, 1870, when HMS Captain was commissioned, the ensign was accidentally hoisted upside down. Never has an omen been more tragically of swiftly fulfilled.”

“Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!”

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Next castles and castros…

Nunca Mais: The Prestige Oil Disaster

It’s a windy night here in Galicia. The wind makes me think of those “in peril on the sea” as we used to sing in assembly when such things were not blighted by political correctness. It also serves to remind me that sometime back I began a series on shipwrecks of the Costa da Morte. There are literally hundreds, recently put together in an excellent book by my friend Rafael Lema. The most famous, or rather infamous, is probably the Prestige. In terms of loss of human life it cannot rank with The Serpent or the HMS Captain as mercifully no one lost their life as a direct fresult(the HMS Captain went down with 480 souls and about which later), but as an environmental and ecological disaster it is probably without equal.

The tanker Prestige was a Greek operated single-hulled ship which, by all accounts, should never have been on the high seas.

On the voyage in question in November 2002, it was carrying 77,000 metric tons of heavy oil when one of its tanks burst off the Galician Costa da Morte. The captain contacted the authorities with the news expecting that the ship would be brought into harbour. Captain Mangouras sought refuge for his seriously damaged vessel in a Spanish port: a request of which has deep historic roots. However, instead the ship was turned away not only from the Spanish coast but also the Portuguese where the naval authorities forced the vessel to once again change its course and head northwards. French opposition to having the ship in its ports left the Prestige with nowhere to go. On November 19th, having lost a substantial amount of its cargo, the ship split in half some 150 miles from the Galicia coastline.

An earlier oil slick had already reached the coast. The Greek captain of the Prestige, Apostolos Mangouras, was taken into custody, accused of not co-operating with salvage crews and of harming the environment. After the sinking, the wreck continued leaking oil. It leaked approximately 125 tons of oil a day, which polluted the sea bed and contaminated the coastline, especially along the Costa da Morte of Galicia.

Initially, the government announced that 17,000 tons of oil had been lost, and that the remaining 60,000 tons would freeze and not leak from the sunken tanker. However, by early 2003, it was claimed that half of the oil had been lost. In subsequent investigations that figure has risen considerably to almost 90% of the Prestige’s cargo.

The immediate damage to those who depended upon the sea for their livelihood, and to habitats and wildlife was incalculable. While the governments of Galicia and Spain pondered what to do, thousands of volunteers were organized to help clean the affected coastline. As teams of volunteers cleared one thick coat of fuel from the sand another black wave would wash in.

In a region renowned for an abundance of fine fish and seafood, fishermen faced the though of complete ruin. Almost 26,000 people depend on the sea in Galicia for their livelihood, but as the slick spread all fishing was banned.

The massive cleaning campaign was a success, however, recovering most portions of coastline not only from the effects of the oil spill but also from the accumulated usual contamination, although even today, patches of oil and oil-covered rocks are still a common enough site on many beaches.

But according to recent BBC news story, a scientific study suggests clean-up workers may have been exposed unnecessarily to harm. Genotoxic analysis detected increased "damage values" in volunteers exposed to the oil over several months, suggesting a higher risk of certain illnesses, including cancer.

Although the oil covered 100's of miles of coastline, the environmental damage caused by the Prestige was most severe in the coast of Galicia, where local activists founded the environmental movement Nunca Máis (Galician for Never Again), to denounce the passiveness of the conservative government regarding the disaster. The cost of the clean-up to the Galician coast alone has been estimated at €2.5 billion. The clean-up of the Exxon Valdez cost US$3 billion. Because of the colder temperature of the waters off the Canadian west coast, the oil from the Exxon Valdez was said to be easier to contain. In the immediate aftermath of the Prestige incident, rescue teams found more than 22,000 dead birds. It is thought that was a fraction of the total number killed.

Unlike the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP is having to foot a huge bill for compensation, the complexities of international shipping meant Spain only recovered a small percentage of the estimated 660m euros ($832m; £541m) worth of damage caused by the Prestige.

For most Galicians, the trial of the tanker's captain and crew - and the director of Merchant Shipping in Madrid - is about getting answers, not money.

They want to know who was responsible, and they demand reassurance such an accident could never be repeated.

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Review of Emilio Estevez' The Way...

My pilgrim daughter, Rebecca, and I went to see the film in Malaga last year. I was expecting to be disappointed. But I wasn't.

First of all, it is balanced. There is acknowledgment of the religious aspects of the Camino, but also the idea of the Way as the destination, as Tom spreads his son's ashes at various waymarks along the path, but also decides - having had a conversation with a helpful gypsy in Burgos - to take the path beyond Compostela to Muxía to scatter the remainder of the ashes in the sea on the rocks in front of La Virgen de la Barca. Having visited Muxía myself this year I was delighted that they chose this place rather than the more commercialised Finisterre.

Secondly, it is powerful. The notion of a Tom who changes gradually from someone who sought to impose his own values and lifestyle on his adventurous son follows the idea that no matter who your are or what you believe in, the Camino WILL change you in one way or the other, as Tom does, "seeing" his son along the Camino and even visualising him pulling the ropes of the Botefumeiro with great satisfaction in the Cathedral.

Finally, it is funny. The scene where the four are practicing baton-twirling with their bordones had me laughing out loud. In fact, the dialogue free part of the movie as they move across the Mesa was my favourite. It helped to encapsulate what happens when individuals with nothing whatsoever in common, come together in commonm circumstances.

I didn't particularly like two of the characters and in this Rebecca and I were in agreement: Sarah the Canadian is much too brash and intrusive from the outset (and who wears skin tight jeans on the Camino?), but perhaps she had to be hard in order to mellow through the journey, as she seems to do. There was nheed to flesh out the character but perhaps little time. The Irish writer selfishly only wants to take the lives of others in order to break out of his writer's block and it is hard to warm to him at any time although even Tom accepts him for what he is later in the movie.
Tom, however is brilliantly portrayed by Martin Sheen whose facial expressions leave extensive dialogue unnecessary. A true award winning performance.

Purists will complain about the non-Latin Compostela and the fact that the replacement was given so easily (can't tell any more though...). No we don't go up the steps and through the Great Door: I believe only the King does that! Both Rebecca and I as long term residents of Spain were offended by the unpleasant "Madame Debril"-type character who has never walked the Camino and who informs Tom that he is in Basque country - Navarra in this case - and not Spain. This was a gratuitous, misleading and unncecessary throw away by Estevez and I could hear people bristle around me here in the cinema in Andalucia. It's a touchy subject. More Catalunians think themselves "not Spanish" than Navarese, or even those from Pais Vasco. Also police are not likely to throw enebriated and noisy pilgrims in the drunk tank (God knows they'd never get any real work done else!).

On a positive note - and there are many - "El Ramon" from Jack Hitt's wonderful book Off the Road was a great little vignette as were others taken from that favourite Camino book of mine (though not where the bird drops from the sky, alas). Read it for yourself; it is still the best.

I am looking forward to the DVD and the chance to see it in English. Certainly it can only have a positive effect on those who are feeling the Camino draw them closer. It's gently done, perhaps too gentle for a general audience, but it has a lasting effect and made me want to get my boots out (yet) again.
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More soon on my recent adventures in Galicia and the birth of the Little Fox.

Generosity and Gratitude Part 2...

Pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago often experience unexpected acts of kindness along the way. A hand profers an apple, a barra de pan, a cupful of water, a place to sit in the shade or out of a torrential downpour. Often these gestures are accompanied by "Un abrazo por el Apostol": A hug for the saint. On occasion something fortuitous happens, seemingly for no reason. Synchronicity? Who knows?

St. James.

But these things are not limited to while one is actually walking the Camino. Pilgrims seem to trail some sort of air of, dare I say, sanctity? Joy. Pilgrims cut the path that many others would love to follow but do not, or cannot. They take wishes, prayers, blessings with them, often unknowingly.

Just this past trip, these four things happened:

1/ I was admiring a game about Galicia in the 26th of July cafe in Santiago(opposite the new Police Staion - great breakfasts). I asked where I could buy one and the response was disappointing. It seemed it had been the result of a promotion by a local radio station some years ago. "But you can have it if you really like it," Noria said.

2/ My hosts at the Hostal Alameda (rua San Clemente - really recommended and very central) looked after my other luggage when I went to Muxia. Upon my return, Rosa gave me a beautiful book of old photos of Compostela. "It is Antonio´s favourite," she said. "He wants you to have it." Inside where these words:

Que esta visión al pasado sea una inspiracion para tu futuro

I doubt I need to translate but it means:
That this vision of the past will be an inspiration for your future.

It was signed by Antonio, Rosa, and Lia their granddaughter whom I have watched grow up year by year.

3/ Seeing my interest in having a go at reading Rosalio del Castro's poems in Galego, the bookseller at the stall by the park gave me a little book about colours for children in Galego. "For your grandaughter," she said.

4/ My car's electrics were playing up most of the time. In Muxia it seemed to get worse. I asked the lady cleaning my room for a local garage. I figured it was something small like a fuse (it was) "Nothing in Muxia," she said, "but if it won't start tomorrow, you can take my car and go to the next town". I had met her just 5 minutes earlier!!!

And then there is Portugal. Five times in the past years I have found myself looking for something I can't find, and five times someone has either walked with me or jumped in the car or their motorcycle and said "Follow me!"Whenever I am in north Portugal I stay at the house of Fernanda Gomez Rodriguez and her husband Jacinto and their daughter Mariana. Fernanda treats every pilgrim who comes up her steps, weary and thirsty, as though they are the prodigal son, or daughter. Such love and kindness I have never ever seen elsewhere, though there are some which come very close along the Way.

Today in the mail I got a packet. I did not recognise the address. Three weeks ago I was presenting my books Pilgrimage to Heresy and the new book St. James' Rooster (Peregrinos de la Herejia y El Gallo de Santiago) at the II Encuentro Mundial de Peregrinos in Villafranca del Bierzo. I got talking with Jacob from Barcelona, or near it. "The Holy Grail was in Montserrat," he told me. I said that I thought this was actually a later Catholic myth designed to cover up that it might have been in Montsegur. He was insistent. I demurred, and then said how I had been looking at every flea market and yard sale for years for a figure of the Black Virgin of Montserrat. "I'll send one to you," he said.

Well, I had truly forgotten about this til she stepped out of her wrappers in all her Black is Beautifulness. She is in front of me as I write. That search, at least, is over.

Thank you, Jacob. So much.

I wonder about these phenomena. Do we radiate something angelic while on or close to the Camino which makes others WANT to help us? Draws them to our innocence? Are we in some sort of state of grace that others can feel our weariness and our joy?

I don't know. But I sure do like it!

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Hither and Yon...

That is where your blogger has been for the last three weeks. Here and there, there and back again: a wannabe Pilgrim’s Tale. Wanna be because despite all my good intentions, the walking was restricted to Santiago and the lovely seaside town of Muxia. Stick with me over the next week or so and I'll tell you why...

I drove overnight to the north along the Ruta de La Plata, the “Silver Route”. Silver because the Romans used it to transport that metal, mined in the north, to the south. Silver, iron, gold even: they are still to be found in the hills around Pontferrada but very little is mined there now.

I had intended to overnight in Merida but passed it just as I was enjoying the drive (about four hours from home in Marbella). So I carried on to Santander because I wanted to see the cathedral illuminated. Passed it, or it passed me. I was in a Zen trance by then (I’ll bet you never realised that when you are driving long distances you are in a state of hypnosis). Too late to stop and look for a hotel by now…

Zamora, Benavente, Leon, Sahagun. Finally at 3:00 in the morning, having driven 1,100 klms straight through in 12 hours, I pulled my car up beside Rebekah Scott’s front wall, let the passenger seat all the way down, put my backpack in the footwell, pulled out my sleeping bag and …….zzzzzzzzzzzz

The next day, having been duly breakfasted (and taking a short afternoon nap in the silence of The Peaceable Kingdom ,broken only by the trill of the canary), I drove Rebekah and her American friend, Kathy (who had just arrived after an exhausting trip from San Francisco) up to Cantabria.

“Doesn’t Kathy want to rest?” I asked, innocently.
Both women looked at me as if I were Raggedy Ann. O.K. Potes and Liebana, here we come.

The drive through the Picos is quite spectacular: mountain goat country and a few wolves to keep the goats on their horny toes. Vertiginous heights and babbling brooks and a few old monasteries to keep the history lover happy. (It's so deserted up there that any lovers would be happy!) Reb and Kathy were to walk back along the Camino Vadiniense, an almost lost trail named after a native people who once inhabited that area. Rebekah is writing the Pilgrim Guide for the Confraternity of St. James.

We had visited the monastery of Beatus of Liebana - who, if you read earlier posts, you will realise is a bit of an arch-enemy of mine - (from a Priscillianist point of view you understand: I am sure Beatus meant well as he tried to promote the cult of James. No doubt he was a lovely man). I had visited it once before. Rebekah and Kathy went inside to touch the fragment of the True Cross the monks claim to hold. I went outside and splashed my face in the Pagan fuente. We heretics do that sort of thing.

Then it was top of the mountain, photos taken, and off they went!
I believe the words “Lucky buggers” escaped my lips as I watched them go.
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Photo by Rebekah Scott/Kathy Gower

...but not Basques

In the present Spanish provinces of Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and Navarra, there is no record whatsoever of Celtic dominance, or, for that matter, any dominance at all. For these are the Basque regions.

The Celts would have found themselves moving through this area, but it would appear that the local populations were sufficiently strong to resist them, or to finally absorb them and completely transform them.

As is well-known, Basque bears no resemblance to Spanish, or any other language.
Farther west, however, the Celts either displaced or dominated the older stocks of people, amongst them would have been the Iberians. Still farther west and northwest, they found people very much like themselves and they began to blend with them. The Celts wore trousers, whereas the Iberians still wore robes. It is likely that the Celts brought the domesticated horse with them and it is also just as likely that the Celtiberians adopted the Celtic mode of dress. Another point worth mentioning is that the Celts had no written language, yet the Iberians did, in some cases quite sophisticated. It is this language which has been used to identify the names of the gods inscribed throughout the northwest.

The Celts came into Iberia with their flocks, families, and wagons. Interestingly, one type of wagon is still in use in Galicia today. Like the Iberians, with whom it is more than likely they share a common racial bond originating in the Middle East, they were a pastoral people. It is difficult to determine which kind of economy was dominant - as in all countries, this is determined by the region itself, but in the northern forests there was an abundance of everything they needed for their animals -beech mast and acorns for pigs, and food for their horses, cattle, and goats. On the Meseta, the land proved perfect for the harvesting of crops, and there it was this type of farming which predominated.

The wild boar seems to have been an object of veneration, possibly of both groups, but certainly after the two began to meld their very similar cultures. In the northwest, several Verracos have been found: crude stone sculptures of life-sized pigs. These appear to date to the 6th century BCE, and are considered Celt-Iberian.

But the veneration of the animal did not preclude its uses as a food, often perhaps as sacrificial animals, whose flesh was later enjoyed. Other animals also seemed to have been held sacred and it is noteworthy that the Irish Celts also kept sacred cattle and swine.
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Something to Crow About...

There is no doubt about it in my mind. Choosing a title is harder than writing the book. I have always had a title for Book Two of The Camino Chronicles, but I never thought of it as a working title. Compostela was the title I had chosen and that was that.

More recently, though, I have learned something of the skill of SEO: that's Search Engine Optimisation to you. I have also learned a thing or two about spiders: Google spiders. It seems they are very choosy and will only pick up words that are linked back. One or two people liked the name Compostela, but said that it might easily be confused with a non-fiction title while others said that it would never end up on the first page of any search about pilgrimage books. And I had to agree they were right.

But now what? Because the story has not one but two timelines (as does Pilgrimage to Heresy) it made it much harder to pick something snappy that would be appropriate to both. I needed something to grab peoples' attention.

Then the other day I was reading one of my many reference books and I found just the very thing. In a novel by Gallego Ramon Otero Pedrayo, one of his characters refers to Bishop Diego Gelmirez as El Gallo de Santiago. Now everything I know about Diego Gelmirez (and after three years of research I know a lot) tells me that was a man who - as my mother would have put it - wasn't backwards in coming forwards. Almost single handedly, Diego put the Santiago into Compostela. He was tireless (and ruthless) in making Compostela one of the three most important sites of Christian pilgrimage in the world. He was, most truly, cock of the walk: The Rooster of St. James.

So it's official. And you read it here first!

"Endquote"...

And so finally we are back to the original question: why do I "like" Gnosticism?

Did the Cathar belief leave with the last to die? I don't know. What I do know is that there is a hunger in the world today. A hunger to release us from the chains of econotheism, and the wholesale worship of technology: of the Easy Option. A spiritual hunger? I don't know. Perhaps it is a hunger of the developed world which ignores or pays mere lip service to the real hunger of countries like Eritrea, Haiti, Pakistan...

But whatever it is, it has a hold on many of us.

Perhaps you recognise yourself here: wondering just what it is that you were put on this earth to do, or the even more difficult question: in terms of science, does my life count for nothing? Will I make no real mark on the grand scale of the existence (chaotic existence or...?) of this planet? Am I just a spread of time between birth and death? Am I a "waste of space"?

I hope that what I have written here on this blog in recent months and before will persuade you that you are UNIQUE and VALUABLE. Your very presence on this earth can affect anything you wish it to. All you have to do is to push just one domino...and you will affect everything that happens in the world after that. Every single thing! You are a butterfly. Flap your wings!

I was asked not long ago, why I “liked” Gnosticism. This was my brief when I was asked to speak at the Gnostcism conference at Brock University last September. I laughed. I mean I can tell you why I like high-heeled snakeskin boots, sushi, movies starring Sandra Bullock, and old Volvos. But as to why did I like Gnosticism? It just had me giggling.

But I am going to try: I like Gnosticism because it respects me as a person, a spirit, a flight of occasional fancy, an intellect, a once-in-a-while penitent, a craving, a light, a dreamer, a child in the clearing. I like Gnosticism because it respects my questioning mind; it does not seek to chain me to irreconcilable paradox to which I am told I must believe because it is absurd.

I like Gnosticism because it gives me liberation from the world, resurrection of the body, restitution of the Spirit in this life. It allows me to see the beauty of the world but not the need to identify with it in order to find my true home.
"It restoreth my soul"

I like Gnosticism.

I hope you do too.

(Beautiful photo of Tarifa beach by Rebecca Saunders)

On Pain of Death...

The church forbade the reading of the Bible. Catholic Christians were forbidden from reading the Bible, or possessing one in any language, including Latin! Theological discussion with Jews was expressly forbidden since there was no such prohibition in the Jewish faith. St. Louis admonished any Christian upon hearing of the law from a Jew to "thrust his sword into the Jew's belly as far as it will go".

It was considered tantamount to proof of heresy that anyone would feel the need to look for proof of the church's teachings by resorting to bible study. In England, William Tyndale was burned as a heretic for translating the Bible into English and anyone owning or reading his translation was treated likewise.

Not surprisingly, the various translations into the vernacular in the Aquitaine and the southern regions of France had to be stopped and toute de suite!

So who were the Cathars and what did they believe?
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The Hunting of Heretics: The Cathars

The term "Cathars" was never used by those who simply called themselves Les Bonhommes, or Good Christians. While some scholars have claimed the word comes from the Greek Kataroi, meaning the Pure Ones, others, most notably Nicolas Gouzy of the Centre d'Etudes Cathares in France, have suggested that the name was more comparable to an insult deriving from the German "die Ketzerei" meaning "cat worshippers" and indeed in the iconography of the Middle Ages they were almost always accompanied by cats, a symbol of evil for all of Christendom at the time. They have also been often referred to as The Albigenses, after the chronicler Geoffrey of Vigeous in 1181, especially in the scholarly literature. But this too may be a misnomer as the town of Albi was not notably Cathar with the greatest concentration of believers to the south and south east of the Languedoc and towards the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees.

Why were the Cathars (and for ease of recognition, I'll use this term throughout) such a threat to the Roman church that it was deemed necessary to persecute and exterminate them in their hundreds, perhaps thousands?

Notable in the Cathar writings of the 13th century we find this:

"The Roman church is not ashamed to say that they are the lambs of Christ. They say that the heretics they persecute are the church of wolves. But this is absurd. The wolves have always pursued and slaughtered the sheep. It would have to be the contrary for the sheep to be so mad as to hunt down and kill the wolves, and for the wolves to be so passive and patient as to let the sheep devour them."

The early 11th century brought about a crisis of faith. The world had not ended with the Millennium as most expected it to do according to prophecy. The clergy were seen as corrupt, seeking only power and riches; the Latin litany droned on with no-one understanding a word. No-one spoke Latin anymore and comprehension of the mass was reserved only for those who could read and write in that language; this did not even seem to include some of the priests themselves who used onlywell-used psalms and prayer books. In fact, as I shall mention later, the ownership of a bible was a capital offence since it pre-supposed heretical interests! People began to speak openly of the inconsistencies of the Catholic faith and Catholic practices. They spoke out about the usury of the church; of the fees collected by avaricious churchmen and their superstitious rites. The moneys they collected for holy water, oil, and earth for burial. Ordinary people began to move away from the massive cathedrals and abbeys and began to go - as the comedian Lenny Bruce has termed the 20th century spiritual comparison - "...back to God".

What can the world be other than created by the devil, they said. They began to preach detachment from this realm whose prince was Satan and sought ways to "a new heaven, and a new earth where justice will dwell".
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