The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

visit Hecho I did not consider a deviation from the Road of St. James, for one of my companions on a previous pilgrimage to Compo-stella was a youth from the town who had been killed in the Civil War in 1937 and I wanted to put some flowers on his tomb. Hecho I had visited repeatedly during the Second World War, as it was close to the Summer School of the University of Saragossa at Jaca, where I used to lecture occasionally. I have a very soft spot in my heart for Don Veremundo and his fellow townsmen, for in the Second World War they gave wonderful help and hospitality to hundreds of allied soldiers of all ranks, especially to the British, who escaped by the mountain routes into Spain, and Don Veremundo richly deserved the name he was given at birth, which was that of the Saint of Charity.
    Hecho is a cosy little town with its narrow, cobbled streets, and a festive one, too, with many taverns with queer names, such as Venta de rompesacos (Tough grass inn), F.scula-bolsas (the purse-emptyer) and Venta de no re fies (Trust-me-not inn). Don Veremundo toasted me daily and nightly in wine which came from across the mountain from the vineyards of Cariñena—-a dark, red, heady wine, which merely by being transported over the mountain range became in Hecho transformed magically into a golden wine of distinction.
    One of the strangest traits about the secluded populations of Hecho and Ansó is their positive hatred of one another. Coming from a Celtic island where there have always been traditional feuds between small communities I was prepared to find the same tendency in Iberian Spain. The minstrels in Spain, as in Ireland, when they travelled through the countryside, used always to introduce a litany of towns in order to elicit merry responses from the crowd, and they vented their spite against the villages where they had not been well-treated, as for instance in the following copla:

    Villanueva del Camino,
    Where barrels are big,
    But devil a drop to swig.
    In Córdoba, now you are sure to find
    That the water is cold,
    But the women are bold.

    But all such spiteful proverbs and nicknames are as child’s play compared to the abuse showered by Hecho on Ansó and vice versa. Their rivalry is even more long-standing than that which George Borrow found existing between Corunna and Vigo. One night in Hecho, emboldened by Don Veremundo’s generous wine, I broached.
    “You are indeed privileged people in Hecho,” said I, “and now I understand why you have the undying enmity of the people in the neighbouring valley.”
    “A plague on the Ansotanos,” said one of the company, clearing his throat scornfully. “If we sent them a barrel of this wine as a token of good will the wine would turn to vinegar on the mountain through sheer disgust.”
    Don Veremundo is a humanist and looks upon the long-standing feud and rivalry between the twin valleys sub-specie aeternitatis. “They both,” he said, “suffer from an ineradicable superiority complex. They fondly imagine that their valley is better than any other place in the world. They feel that other villages are hostile. They even believe that Saragossa, the capital of Aragon, is jealous of their town and valley.”
    After Hecho I crossed the mountain and visited my cobbler friend Don Sixto in Anso, for he had written to me saying that his son intended to make the pilgrimage to Compostella as it was the Holy Year. I found him busily at work in his murky little den surrounded by piles of shoes and alpargatas of all sizes and strips of leather.
    “You’d better not say where you’ve come from,” said he, spitting noisily as he hammered a sole.
    “You’re just as prejudiced as they are over in Hecho,” said I, “but I’ll dare bet that you’ve no wine in Anso as good as what they drink in the next valley.”
    “Fiddlesticks! Come with me to the Casino and I’ll give you wine which will make you dance the jota till doomsday. Come with me this evening: there is dancing in the plaza and you’ll see the pilgrim dance with his novia. She takes to him kindly now he has promised her to join the fellows from the town who are off to Compostella.”
    In the plaza I met Don Sixto’s eldest son Raimundo and his pretty novia, who were waiting for the band to start. In Anso it is surprising how men and women have preserved their mediaeval costumes. The men wear a round felt hat with turned up brim and wide trousers with a broad violet sash around their waists. Raimundo’s