The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

mountains. On one occasion he was nearly killed by a hunter who mistook him for a wild beast. When the Moors invaded the Bierzo many of the monasteries were destroyed and the monks dispersed, but in 890 came another founder, St. Genadio, who rebuilt the shrines and gathered the communities which had dispersed.
    On my way to Villafranca del Bierzo I was given a lift by a genuine Maragato of the old school, who was perched on the top of barrels of wine in his carromato drawn by mules, with an awning over it to keep out the sun. Underneath the cart were chains on which his bundles were attached. As the mules plodded on steadily the carter chanted in a drowsy oriental nasal tone punctuated by curses to the mules. He was on his way to Lugo from Ponferrada and he smacked his lips as he described with loving anticipation the empanadas or meat pasties and Ribeiro wine—‘dark red like the blood of the Moor’—he would consume. “Ponferrada la puertay Galicia la huerta (Ponferrada’s the gate and Galicia’s the garden),” he said proverbially as we descended into the fair town of Villafranca with its churches and palaces set like a gem in a Swiss paradise of green fields and woods. The carter set me down at the entrance to the town below the church of Santiago which rises on a spur above.
    The Church of the Apostle is Romanesque with a single nave and two doors, of which the northern is called Puerta del Perdón. According to local tradition it was so called because if a Jacobean pilgrim was prevented by sickness or by any other serious reason from continuing his journey to Compostella, he could by receiving Holy Communion at the Puerta del Perdón acquire the same spiritual privileges as if he had accomplished the whole pilgrimage.
    The Alcázar of Villafranca, which once belonged to the great family of Alvarez de Toledo, was burnt by the French in 1812. Villafranca was the eighth stop on the Jacobean journey, and in the reign of Alfonso VI the francos, or privileged foreigners, established themselves here at the King’s invitation. A church was dedicated to Our Lady of Cluny, which the people called the Cruñego. Cluniac monks maintained the cult and assisted the foreign pilgrims, most of whom were French.

THE VICAR OF PORTOMARÍN

    When we arrived in Portomarín my companion Eladio went off in search of friends, who would organize dancing in the evening. I went in search of the parish priest of San Nicolás, whom I had visited on previous pilgrimages. He had been parish priest here for the past forty-five years and rarely have I ever met a more characteristic old Gallego, or one more mellowed in the wisdom of his country. Red-faced, good-natured, slow of speech but with the characteristic rise and fall in tone, he radiated peace and serenity, but into his rhythmic speech would come a slight tang of satire, and Ins eyes would twinkle as he rounded off his comments on a note of grave irony. He reminded me of many an old parish priest I had known in Galway or West Cork. Like them he was a capitalist parish priest and, as he said, he was not ashamed to have the finest house in Portomarín with garden, orchard, vegetables, maize and vines. In addition he had built a fine new building and let it to the Guardia Civil.
    “With the police as tenants,” he said, winking at me, “I sit pretty in this village. There has been so much chaos in this distressful country that it is wise to stand in well with the local powers that be, and they help me to keep the lads and lasses in order. They prevent the urchins from stealing my apples, and in fact they get the lads of the village to thresh and reap for me, and keep my fruit trees and my vines tidy.” But Don Diego, as I called him, like many Southern Irishmen, is a complicated character. He strove to impress on me by his ironic comments that he himself was as tenacious and grasping as a Galician peasant, whereas I happened to know that he was quixotically generous and could never say no to his parishioners’ petitions. His one great hobby was his beautiful thirteenth-century church of San Nicolás which gives the pilgrim a foretaste of the shrine of the Apostle, for much of the decoration and the figures were copies from Master Matthew, who directed the work at Compostella from 1188 until 1217. Don Diego first of all brought me to the south door of the church where in the tympanum stands St. Nicholas with upstretched arms between two acolytes, who hold his pastoral staff