Camino Mythology
Trip Start
Unknown
1
22
28
Trip End
Ongoing
Belorado, Castile-León, Spain
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Yesterday, along the track, we had the unique pleasure of meeting Hendrik, from Canada, whose wife has been following our blogs as we move across Spain, a day ahead of him, and it was a surprise to come face to face.
The Camino is ancient, old enough to be World Heritage-listed, and over some 900 years has developed a body of its own myths which can be treated seriously and literally, or just as ripping good yarns, as you see fit. Here are just two.
The Camino began when the corpse of St James was being transported from Rome to Spain by boat (supposedly stone!), apparently still in perfect condition, when a violent storm washed it off the deck of the boat carrying him. The body washed up some weeks later, on a beach near Santiago, miraculously preserved, but covered entirely in scallops shells. Since then the scallop shell has been the symbol of the pilgrimage walk to see his remains in the Santiago Cathedral. I love the symbolism, since as well as being totally far-fetched and absurd, it also effectively represents the fact that you can start the Camino from many places in Europe, but they all end up at the same spot.
The second myth concerns the beautiful town of Santo Domingo, where we stayed last night. The town has a beautiful church dedicated to this saint, who though illiterate, did much to build roads and bridges for pilgrims in the 12 th century. That much is fact, but hereīs the myth, as well as I can remember it. A young couple were doing the Camino walk and stayed at an inn in Santo Domingo for the night. A serving girl at the inn (it`s always those under classes) took a shine to the boy, but when he rejected her advances, she decided to get him into trouble by planting in his bag a goblet stolen from her master. He was arrested for theft, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. This sentence was being carried out when his parents arrived in the town, rushed to see the magistrate who had imposed the sentence, and claimed their son`s innocence. "You are too late, he is already hanged", cried the magistrate. "He`s as dead as these chickens on my plate for dinnerŠ!" At this point the rooster and hen leapt up off his plate and began to crow, the parents rushed to the gallows, found their son (miraculously) still alive, and freed him.
In the Cathedral now live two chooks to celebrate the legend, an unlikely sight in a church!
As I said, the Camoni is rich in its own mythology.
No blog now for several days as we push on past the big city of Burgos, having already done 250 kms.
Comments
So, the moral of the chook tale seems to be we should give in to the advances of serving girls, at the peril of our lives. Even though this does not appear to be that difficult a task, it does not seem appropriate for such a deeply religious enterprise. Perhaps I am misreading this, however. Maybe it's a totally different moral: "Ensure that you cook your chicken dinner before serving it." All this talk of food has made me hungry. I think I'll have some scallops -- thanks to you, I now know where I can find some.