The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

we’re collecting the indulgences, are we?”
    “None of your blasphemies, Pedrín. I am serious, and I’ve come to Oviedo to see the Cámara Santa and pray before the statue of El Salvador before I follow the road towards Compostella.”
    “Ah! You’ve remembered the old refrain,

    Quien va a Santiago
    Y no a Salvador
    Sirve al criado
    Y deja al señor,

    and that’s what brings you to Oviedo, but why go rainbow-chasing after old Santiago Matamoros, the Thunderer? He’s outmoded and worn out. Today we have stream-lined saints who move quicker and obtain quicker returns. We live in a mechanical age, amigo. Why the other day a beata showed me a little statue she had bought at Lourdes which you can see in the dark like a faint white vision. After you have said your prayers I’ll introduce you to a wonderful curandero who lives in Cudillero, and people come from all parts to be cured by him.”
    The old rogue pulled out of a voluminous pocket an amulet made of horn which he solemnly gave me, saying as he rummaged in his pocket: “I have also an old gacepa made of vellum which I’ll let you have cheap: it describes where hidden treasure may be found.”
    My expedition through the streets of Oviedo with Pedrín ended at the celebrated restaurant of Casa Modesta, where we had the local bean feast or fabada asturiana, whose praises have been sung by many a hungry Jacobean pilgrim who turned aside to visit the relics of the Cámara Santa. It is a hotch-potch of white beans, ham, pork, bacon mixed with Asturian sausages and blood puddings and seasoned with saffron, pepper and slices of pimientos morrones, or sweet capsicums. After this Don Gaspar insisted on the extra delicacy of Asturias—• lacón con grelos, or pigs’ feet with young turnip leaves which have a slightly bitter tang. During our repast Pedrín told me mythological stories about Asturias—of the trasgu, a little black goblin with bright eyes who rivals Puck in malicious ingenuity, dresses in red coat and red cap and breaks the kitchen crockery to spite the housewife; of the guaxa who sucks the blood of plump babies, and the busgoso who haunts the lonely forests. “You’ll meet them all, my friend,” said he, ‘along the old pilgrim road by Muros, Cudillero and Luarca.”

THE CÁMARA SANTA

    After saying farewell to Pedrín, I went to the cathedral of El Salvador, which I had not visited since the Civil War. Few sanctuaries in the world are so small and modest in proportions and yet contain so many priceless treasures as the Cámara Santa, which is embedded in the Cathedral of Oviedo. It comes as a surprise to pilgrims to discover that this incomparable little shrine sums up the history of Asturias, which in early days was closely connected with world as well as with Spanish history, and is a museum of works of art and a reliquary of the heroic period of the history of the Church.
    According to historical tradition as explained by Bishop Pelayo in his Liber Testamentorum, the ‘Holy Ark’, containing the relics, which was constructed by the disciples of the Apostles, was taken from Jerusalem to Egypt after 614, when Chosroes, King of Persia, persecuted the Christians, destroyed the churches and removed the Cross of our Saviour. The Christian refugees were hospitably received by John the Almoner, Bishop of Alexandria, but soon afterwards the Mohammedan raids in Egypt and North Africa drove them again into flight, and they crossed the Mediterranean to the Spanish port of Cartagena, whence the relics were taken to Seville and later to Toledo. When the Arabs invaded Spain, Bishop Julian and Prince Pelayo brought the ‘Holy Ark’ to the mountains of Asturias in 735, out of range of the invader, and it was deposited in the Church of St. Michael, which was built on the north side of San Salvador.
    It was in the chapel of St. Michael built by Alfonso II, the Chaste, that the ‘Holy Ark’ was opened at the solemn ceremony of March 6, 1075, in the presence of Alfonso VI, King of León, Doña Urraca, the Bishops of Oviedo, Oca, Astorga and Palencia and other dignitaries, among whom was the Cid. In commemoration of the ceremony, the King ordered the ark to be covered with plates of silver, and he made many valuable donations to the church and converted the nave of the original modest chapel into the shrine we see today. In order to preserve the relics in greater safety and free from damp, he built the little chapel above the ancient vault of Santa