Beer, ploughs, and other matters of Celto-Iberian male interest...

And so, back to Spain.

What would life have been like for the Celt-Iberians?

One major advantage that the Celts brought with them was that they brought their plough. Although it was of little use on the highlands, it was immeasurably welcomed in the pastoral areas. It was women who planted seed and hoed the cereals for bread and beer (Cerveza - Cervexa in Gallego - is a Celtic word, by the way; Beer is Saxon). There seems to be little dissention in the association of males and ploughs and so to some degree men began to be involved in planting, which re-affirms the also universal fascination of men for tools and gadgets! Up to this point, men had considered farming unmanly and women's work. Now, they couldn't wait to get out into the fields to try out their new toys and no doubt congregated in Celt-Iberian taverns to down a brew or two afterwards and discuss the relative size and efficiency of their ploughs...

And their women folk likely breathed a sigh of relief and went back to raising children and small animals.

In the central area around the present cities of Zamora, Valladolid and Palencia, large quantities of wheat were harvested especially by the Vacceos, a group living close to the Douro valley; these people came late into the peninsula and may have brought more sophisticated farming methods with them. As their name suggests, they were also raisers of cattle. These people were likely also Celts from Europe, perhaps originating in the Alsace-Lorraine region. They organised into a collective society, and this made them unusual. The grain harvest was officially controlled - division was made equally and the death penalty was enacted for holding out any of the grain from the collective pool.

In the northern mountains, there was more a combination of herding, farming, and hunting and gathering, without any particular accent upon one or the other. This remains very much the system even today in Galicia. Strabo, writing about them was surprised that they lacked olive oil (which the Etruscans and Greeks introduced to the south and east much later). In its place he said they used butter, although it was much more likely lard. The words manteca for pig fat and mantequilla for butter predate Latin and as you see are very similar in sound and derivation. In either case, there was notable dependence upon animal fat and in fact still is. Olive oil is more a part of the Mediterranean diet.

To this day, the north west of the Meseta, the area known as Extramadura abounds in oak trees, as does much of central Portugal and north into the area around Leon. Gathering appears to have had much importance and Strabo also mentioned that the northern people gathered great quantities of acorns, both as food for themselves and for their livestock. He neglected to mention the chestnut. There are still woods of sweet chestnut trees in this area, and the vast forests which preceded them have disappeared only in the last few generations. In the 19th century they still flourished.

Although the Iberians knew iron, and in fact the northwest abounds in this mineral, they did not seem to have known how to use it. It was the Celts who taught them how to make tools and utensils from iron. Open-cast mining would have been in evidence, and by the time the Romans came in the 2nd century BCE, the abundance of iron in the northwest would have made this a desireable area to settle and work. And they did.

Despite, Asterix the Gaul, the Celts had met their match.
.

Tall Tales in Ireland ...

What I've suggested so far, and much literature concurs, is that the inhabitants of the north-west of Spain and Portugal began as one and the same people, originating near or east of the Black Sea. They left their homeland at some point in Biblical history, and separated near the Danube. There is good evidence which shows that these were of Indo-European stock and in fact originated in Assyria, but I shall return to this later.

It puts a very different spin on the notion of what was "Celtic"...and whom.

It took 2000 years or more for the family reunion. By that time, Great Uncle Arthur would barely have recognised Great Aunt Maud.

And so, we are free to pick up our tale once again of how the Hibernians got to Hibernia, and what they did when they got there. (Parental warning: Bad puns.)

It begins with King Breoghan, a Celt-Iberian who had two sons: Ir (or Ith) and Bil. Bil had a son whose name was Mil (Milesius, from whom the Milesians are named). Breoghan had built an enormous watchtower on the north west coast of Spain.

One winter evening, Ir, Breoghan's son, stood atop the watchtower and looking northwards across the seas he saw a glistening island (Don't say I didn't warn you!). He set off with 90 warriors to investigate.

The rulers of this land were the Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods who had wrested control from the giants. They welcomed Ir and his men when he landed, but Ir was foolish enough to speak of the land in such glowing terms that the gods decided that he might have plans to take over (and yes, you have heard this story before - you would think they would have known by now). So they had Ir killed.

When news of his murder reached Breoghan in Iberia, he ordered his nephew, Mil, to send his 8 sons north to even up the score. So they gathered an armada of 65 ships and sailed, arriving, legend has it, at Donegal. In their number was Scota, the wife of Mil, who was to give her name to the land of Scotland, as the Celts moved north-east. Amergin was the first to set foot upon the shore, and planting his right foot upon the soil, said: "What land is better than this island of the setting sun." Some reports say that he cut off his right hand and threw it onto the shore from the boat so that he would be the first to touch it. One can only assume this was not his sword hand.

The Milesians agreed that this was their new home, but first they had to contend with the gods.

They marched towards Tara and along the way they met with Erin, one of the goddesses and the wife of the god, MacGreine. She prophesised that the land would become theirs and asked them to name it after her and Amergin consented.

However, when they reached the home of the gods, the gods complained that they had been taken by surprise. A cry of "No Fair" was heard upon the land. A plan was agreed upon whereby the Milesians would behave in an honourable manner and that they would once again embark on their ships, returning to a distance of nine waves from the shore. By then, the gods would be ready for battle.

But the gods played a trick on them and raised a powerful wind preventing the Milesians from reaching the shore.

This, not to put too fine a point on it, pissed Amergin off!

"I invoke the Land of Erin," he bellowed, "The shining, shining sea! The fertile hills! The wooded vales! The rivers abundant! The fishful lakes...!" ("Fishful": I love that word.)

The incantation worked as the land itself rose up and forced the wind to die down.

To make an increasingly lengthy story shorter, the final result was Milesians 1 and the gods, Nil - but since Nil is an Irish name, perhaps zero might be more accurate. The gods and goddesses retreated below the earth and selected a new king, the Dagda, who allotted each member a mound beneath which the deities would engage in perpetual feasting, emerging every now and then to curdle milk, and blight corn, and so on, as crossed gods and goddesses do.

After a while of this, the new kings of Ireland decided it was in their best interests to make peace with the deities, hence they were given an honorary role - even if their palaces were below ground.

Many stories issue from here, some as tall or taller. But I shall leave those to the Irish!
.

Who were the Celts?

Although there was certainly a variation between the generally dark haired Iberians and the taller, blonde or red-headed Celts, both types may be seen in the northwest today, and have quite easily identified features which differ both from the Spanish of the Eastern ports, and the Andalucians, which show considerable Moorish influence.

Today's Galician or Asturian, as well as the people of Northern Portugal, show that the Celti-Iberians, as they became known, have produced many descendants who occupy these regions today.

But did these earliest people call themselves Celts? As we have already seen, there is some conjecture that they called themselves Iber, and that the land of Iberia, today's Spain (which comes from Hispania, the name given to the Peninsula by the Romans), and subsequently Hibernia as the ancient land of Ireland, the Land of Ir, or of Erin.

While he may not have been the first, Herodotus mentions the Keltoi. They are also called this and Galatai by other writers of the period and later, and it is interesting that the two names are given to essentially the same peoples. They are generally described as having fair or red hair, and blue eyes. But the same description has been attributed to the peoples of Scythia. The Romans modified this to the Celtae and the Galli. But although there were to be found throughout Europe and as far as the Black Sea, the Celts as a people do not seem to have existed. They were instead a great number of tribes who appeared to have acted, for the most part, independently of one another. There was no Celtic Emperor, nor common leader. They had no central administration, no form of government outside of what was determined individually by the tribes. They had no unified army which could be called upon in times of war against a common foe. Perhaps because the European Celts, such as they were, had no common foe.

The problem of identifying who, in fact were "Celtic" and who were not and the extent of Celtic culture might be solved if we were more knowledgeable as to which of the tribes identified by the Greeks and the Romans were indigenous and which were not. This is particularly true in the Iberian Peninsula. Speaking of the Keltoi of Iberia, Herodotus identified them in a region close to the Algarve in southern Portugal, yet Aristotle claims they were above Iberia in a very cold region. Although the northwest is colder than Portugal, even during the winter, it could hardly be described as very cold - very wet, maybe. The interior of Castilla, however, can be downright chilly in the winter.

It would appear that there is little agreement. The problem as it appears to me is that we have fallen into a tendency to think of the Celts as a clearly identifiable people, and I think I have demonstrated that this was not so. Although the term "Celtic" may mean certain common features in terms of economics, social structure, and religion, even this differs from area to area, and likewise, since geography frequently determines character, from tribe to tribe. Only language seems to be a constant factor and it remains so today, although by this criterion - and this has kept Galicia from being accepted by the Celtic League - the so-called Celtic peoples remaining in Galicia and Asturias, are not so by contemporary definition.

Besides, the time of Herodotus is much later than our story, so next time perhaps it is time to return to it.
.
I've just discovered this very in depth article about the Celts in Iberia so thought I would share:
http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_12/olivares_6_12.html

II ENCUENTRO MUNDIAL de PEREGRINOS. VILLAFRANCA del BIERZO 2011

II WORLD-WIDE PILGRIMS CONFERENCE, VILLAFRANCA del BIERZO, July 22nd to 24th, 2011, Spain. From Valencia in 2010 to Santiago in 2021, the next Holy Year. This is the stated aim of the "Siete Botas de Leguas".

Announcing the second conference after the very successful one in Valencia last year. This year the venue is much closer to Santiago: Villafranca del Bierzo in the beautiful wine producing part of Leon. This year I am particularly looking forward to supporting this much anticipated event because I am speaking at it about Pilgrimage to Heresy, Priscillian, and Archbishop Diego Gelmirez.

The doors of the Theater of Villafranca will open at 5:00 on Friday July 22nd and until they close again on Sunday 24th you will be in for a pilgrim treat.

Marialaya Burgos, presents the II World-wide Encounter of Pilgrims to Villafranca del Bierzo 2011 and thanks the mayor for welcoming us.
Roger de la Cruz, Vice President of the AACSdB will speak.
Following are Tomas, the last Templar hospitalero of Manjarin.
Jesus Jato, hospitalero in Villafranca.
Alfredo, hospitalero in Molinaseca.
Lydia B. Smith, director of The Camino Documentary Way,
Jose Almeida, will present his book, "Sentimientos Peregrinos"
Teresa Simal, presents her book “Mochila y Bordón”
And yours truly, Tracy Saunders will speak about my new book St. James' Rooster/El Gallo de Santiago, the second book in The Camino Chronicles after Pilgrimage to Heresy/Peregrinos de la Herejía. Maybe I might be also talking about The Dove and the Yellow Cross which is my working title for the next book.

There will be a superb exhibition and film on "The Promotion of the Way of Santiago from the Holy Year of 1965” from Fernando Lalanda Pijoan who has rescued this material from oblivion.

Noelia Velasco, presents her photographic exhibition “Camino”.

The new Facebook page of Encuentro, very animated by the way, picks up the writings of Marialaya telling the news about the Organization and its Friends who contribute to the News Feed.

Thee will be a "Mini Camino": from Cacabelos to Villafranca (so bring your hiking boots!), Tapas, Meals, Dinners and Breakfasts, Water, Bread and the excellent Wine of del Bierzo; and Conferences, Exhibitions, Cinema, Books, Colloquies and Debates, Conversations and Cameraderie. Marialaya is busy making reservations right now but accomodation is sure to be limited so make sure you book early.

I for one am thoroughly looking forward to it: the Church of Santiago in Villafranca holds very special memories for me (and if you want to know what they are, read Miranda's account in Pilgrimage to Heresy!)

Looking forward to seeing many of my pilgrim friends and readers there...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/ENCUENTRO-MUNDIAL-DE-PEREGRINOS/169224246468324

Con tiempo para la siesta incluido, a las 17:00 abriremos las puertas del Teatro de Villafranca donde podremos disfrutar de una estupenda tarde presentando este II Encuentro, Conferencias y posterior charla-coloquio:

- Marialaya Burgos, presenta el II Encuentro Mundial de Peregrinos Villafranca del Bierzo 2011
- Saluda del Alcalde.
- Bienvenida de Roger de la CruzVicepresidente AACSdB.
- Tomas, hospitalero en Manjarin.
- Jesús Jato, hospitalero en Villafranca.
- Alfredo, hospitalero en Molinaseca.
- The Camino Documentary, Directora Lydia B. Smith.
- José Almeida, presentará su libro «Sentimientos Peregrinos».
- Teresa Simal, presenta su libro “Mochila y Bordón”.
- Tracy Saunders nos hablará de su nuevo libro "El Gallo de Santiago", el segundo en «Las Crónicas del Camino».
Magnifica exposición y película sobre “La Promoción del Camino de Santiago para el año Santo de 1965” que propone un bonito recorrido por este material histórico rescatado del olvido por Fernando Lalanda Pijoan.
- Noelia Velasco, con su exposición fotográfica «Camino»
El nuevo Facebook del Encuentro, muy animado por cierto, recoge los escritos de Marialaya narrando los acontecimnientos de la Organización y a los usuarios que día a día se comunican y organizan.

Mini Camino, Degustaciones, Comidas, Cenas y Desayunos, Agua... Pan y Vino, excelente Vino del Bierzo. Conferencias, exposiciones, Cine, Libros, Coloquios y Debates, Conversaciones y Hermandad.

Esperando a reuniar con muchos de mis amigos peregrinos y lectores...

...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.
.

Beakers and Battleaxes...

To go back somewhat: Two new groups of people emerged in Central Europe around about the late Neolithic period. Each group may be identified independently by their respective burial sites.

The first is the so-called Beaker folk, buried with their Bell Beaker-shaped drinking vessels; the second the "Battle-Axe" folk. It is thought that they may have originated in the Middle East, perhaps as far as present day Iran, and as separate peoples. In Central Europe, by about the beginning of the second millenium, they have fused to become one European people, though with varying cultures. Shortly afterwards, the Bronze age began.

Three successive cultures appear: the first, the Unêtice appear to be the original fusing of the Beaker and the Battle-Axe folk. The Tumulus culture followed the Unêtice, and they are distinguished, as the name implies, by their manner of burying their dead beneath burial mounds. These are to be found throughout Europe, and the British Isles, , and are found also, scattered through Northern and Northwest Spain, and Northern and Central Portugal.

The next group to follow we know as the Urnfeld culture. Some scholars have identified these people as "Proto-Celtic" in that they may have spoken an early form of that language. These people cremated their dead and placed the remains in urns which were buried in flat cemeteries without any covering mound. Like the Tumulus people before them, this period of prehistory shows a great deal of expansion with trade to the south east and later the south west.

It is during the period of the Urnfeld people that agriculture begins to thrive in south and central Europe. This was the time that the Bronze Age was at its peak. Archaeological evidence shows that they produced weapons, tools, eating and cooking vessels, etc.

By the time of the Hallstatt people (named after the town of Hallstatt in Austria where large archaeological finds have been made), and La Tene people, (named likewise after an area in western Switzerland), we find tribes who are considered fully Celtic. Their culture stretched from approximately 1200 BCE to 500 BCE, and it is the very central period which is of interest to us, for this is the period that they began to cross the western passes of the Pyrenees. Many historians argue that the Halstatt people, from whom we derive the idea of "Celtishness” may have penetrated as far as Britain, and possibly later into Ireland through Wales, but by the time they did so, those who had moved towards the Iberian peninsula had long gone.

These people that entered the Western passes through the Pyrenees appear to be an earlier group. It is thought that they did so as early as 1100 BCE. That they left a strong impression upon Iberia, especially in the north, there is no doubt.
.

Who were the Iberians?

In order to investigate this thorny question, we have to go further into the mists of legend, and these are contradictory indeed.

The Irish Book of Leinster makes the extraordinary claim that the ancient peoples of Britain and Ireland were the descendants of some of the lost tribes of Israel. They were, surprisingly described as fair-haired, with light eyes. These were the Hiberi, or Iberi, which at least one writer claims means Hebrew. This is the story of Fenius Farsaid, the leader of the Scythians - a region to the north east of the Black Sea bordering on the Russian steppes. Several comments on this story claim that Fenius was the descendant of Noah, via Japeth his son, and that he was active in helping to build the Tower of Babel. The story says that these people left their homeland and wandered to Egypt where they were welcomed by Pharaoh who wanted to learn their language. The son of their leader, whose name was Niul, fell in love with and married Pharaoh's daughter. Her name was Scota. They had a son named Gaedel Glas, sometimes spelled as Goedel. The generations pass, and a great grandson known as Eber Scot, was suspected of having plans to take over Egypt and his people are ejected from that land. They return to Scythia where, it is said, they dwelt in their boats in the marshes.

One day, a holy man, called in the story "a Druid", told them that he had had a vision of a land which he called Irland. He prophesised: "Your people will not rest until they reach this land." Upon reaching the Danube, some of the Scythians decided to follow it, spreading their peoples upon the European lands as they wandered ever westwards. Unfortunately, since neither GPS nor Rand McNally had been invented in those days, the rest went a little off course and ended back in North Africa, likely in the regions of Libya, Tunisia (present day Carthage), or Algeria, where they supposedly stayed for 7 generations, which begs the question as to whether the druid, whose name was Caicher, described the topography of Irland to them very well. But I suppose even Druids make mistakes.

After a while, someone must have mentioned this curious fact, and they set off again, first quite possibly to Sicily, which although an island, did not measure up either, and from there to what later became known as "Spain". They may have actually gone beyond the "Pillars of Hercules" and entered the area by the River Tagus in Portugal; or conversely via the already existing Mediterranean ports. From there they gradually worked their way across the Peninsula until they reached the areas of what is now Northern Portugal, Asturias, and Galicia, either way, this green land appeared as something which even the most dense amongst them must have recognised resembled the land they had been told to expect.

At this point, I must remind you that we are referring to Myth.

Generations pass. The inhabitants of the land are known as Iberians, and many place names begin to appear including the word "Iber" (which most likely means "River" as "aber" does in Welsh, but why ruin a good story at this point!) We shall refer to it again in due course.
.
Incidentally, if you can't wait for the next part, you can order it from Amazon.com Check this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Influences-North-Heresy-ebook/dp/B004YXKZU4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AZC9TZ4UC9CFC&s=books&qid=1304963381&sr=1-1
It's a bargain at $2.99! That's the cover above. I have had no luck finding our who the artist is so if you know, please let ME know!
.

Tartessos: a myth? Perhaps not...

New influences seem to have reached the Peninsula by about 3000 BCE and began to spread slowly through the next couple of centuries. This culture seems to have come from the Eastern Mediterranean to present day Almeria where mineral deposits were found in plenty. Some of this new wave of people appear to have come directly by sea, possibly via Sicily; others from North Africa, possibly via the region which would later become Carthage. These people may have originated in the regions around Syria and preceded the Phoenicians in their voyages in search of metals. They were called the Hiberi, and again, we shall return to them later. Others likely came via the Danube Valley, but much later. The first split had begun.

Spreading eastward along what is now the Andalucian coastline, by the middle of the second millenium these people may well have founded the legendary civilization of Tartessos - known in the bible as Tarshish. It was likely in the south west of the peninsula in what stretches towards Cadíz from Huelva and into the area now occupied by Portugal. The area was, and still is, rich in mineral deposits, especially copper and silver, and some tin and some gold. True Bronze Age technology began to emerge about this time.

Tartessos was long believed to have been a myth, another of the Atlantean-type until a German archaeologist named Adolf Schulten published a book on the subject in the 1920's. A major find appeared during routine dredging at the mouth of the Rio Tinto, near Huelva. (Tinto means "red", and the river runs with a clear copper colour. Smelting still takes place there.) An ancient wreck was found revealing more than 400 bronze weapons, needles, buttons and other artifacts.

The map I have shown above suggests that Tartessos was very close to the city of Cádiz (Gádir), probably one of Spain's oldest cities known to the Phoenicians. The wide bay shows a basin where the Guadalquivir and Guadalete rivers would have met. This may have stretched towards modern day Sevilla and would have encompassed the Doñana, Europe's largest national park in area and today a mostly wetland sanctuary for many rare species of wildlfe.

This area has even been suggested recently as the site of "Atlantis"! See
http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/kuhne/
for an interesting paper on this particular subject.

More soon
.

Celtic Influences in the North of Spain

The story of the Celts in Spain is a long and detailed one. My own research suggests that there was not one simple migration from the north west but rather two separate one, one of which was much earlier and came from north Africa. Over the next few weeks I hope to convince you that this is so.

And if you are Irish you might be in for a surprise!

The story of Spain begins somewhere in the confused muddle we call pre-history. Somewhere in the Peninsula, perhaps in the place we call Altamira, an artist picked up a piece of cold charcoal from the ashes of his campfire, and scratched a few lines on the wall of a cave. With a little practice, he produced a rough outline of a bird, a fish, a horse. He sat back, pleased with his work, and went to ask others to come and see what he had completed. The first art exhibition was a complete success.

As generations and aspiring artists perfected their techniques they began to experiment with other materials. Charcoal, they found, did not last, and so they replaced it with flint tools, and mixtures of ochre, blood, animal fat, plant extracts and minerals. Simultaneously, through the peninsula wherever there were caves, other works were in progress. In Altamira, the paintings are vivid and realistic: bison stand proudly: many of them painted on the cave's ceiling; horses gallop. In order to depict the muscles of these animals, the artists used the irregular relief of the rock's surface, and the colours are bold. Cave painting had been born, and with it, Art. More than 15,000 years ago, humankind learned to tell stories in pictorial form, and sometimes simply to dream.

The end of the last Ice Age (about 8000BC) ushered in a long transitional period before the arrival of the Neolithic cultures who came from the eastern Mediterranean five millennia later. I shall return to these people later, as they are the progenitors of our story.

As the climate began to warm, the nomadic life of the hunters and gatherers began to melt away northward with the icecaps as reindeer and other game left for cooler climates. In the next 50 or so centuries, new races began to enter the peninsula, most likely from North Africa. They were most likely proto-Berbers (the indigenous race of most of North West Africa today) and also Iberians, although as we shall see, these people came later and mixed with inhabitants. They brought their own form of art: rock shelter paintings which survive all along the eastern coast of Andalucia. For the first time, human figures begin to appear alongside the animals of the hunt. Stories were being told, but the quality was vastly inferior to those of earlier times: often just stick figures such as the famous "Índalo Man" of Almeria.

The Índalo Man was the focus of my first book The Índalo Quest, about to be re-published, but this is just an aside. Much more on this later ... one book at a time!
.

El Gallo de Santiago...

It's done!

Done, done DONE!

Three years of research and a little over one year of writing and St. James' Rooster is finally FINISHED!

I still have to proof-read it and do some final editing but to all intents and purposes that's another waystage in my life accomplished. Believe me there have been many times when I didn't think I would be writing these words.

It's a funny thing, writing a novel. One gives birth to a family and in some cases sees them grow up, fall in and out of love, learn about life, enjoy their golden years and finally pass on. But as with all your loved ones, they never pass out of your life. My main characters - both the fictional and the non-fictional ones - have become as real to me as my family, friends, students. When I had to break the heart of my favourite character, I cried, and when I had to say goodbye at the end of his life, I missed him so much for days that I couldn't write at all.

But that's in the past now.

I am going to take a bit of time off to update The Indalo Quest, my non-fiction book about mid-life changes, travel and the bond between father and daughter and mother and daughter. It is the type of book which will appeal to fans of books like Eat, Pray, Love and is due for re-printing after 15 years of retirement. It is also my tribute to my mother whom I nursed in her last weeks and whom I began to know only then. Every day I grow more like her. Readers of Pilgrimage to Heresy will recognise a bit of Miranda and Alex in the woman that was me just as I left Costa Rica and came to settle in Spain. It should become available in the late summer and perhaps before that on Kindle if I manage to get a roundtoit. They have been in short supply around here lately. Must be the Recession.

And then what? Well, I have already begun to research the next book in the Camino Chronicles Series. This third one will follow one of the characters from St. James' Rooster to the Languedoc area of southern France... Cathar country.

And that's all I am saying for now.

The story continues...Priscillian's book moves inexorably towards the present day.