The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

Hercules, Bernardo, whose tales of sharks and whales were worthy of Moby Dick, and the wizened Juanito whose sardonic humour was always at the expense of the slow-thinking Bernardo. The two were forever taunting one another, much to the amusement of the other fishermen. The farmers were a contrast, for they were men of few words— cortos de palabras, de obras largos —as Don Tomás said to me when referring to them. They were inclined, to remain taciturn in their corner, but when the singing of Basque songs started they joined the choruses with great gusto, and they were spurred on by our host, old Florencio Jauregui, whose booming voice dominated the proceedings. After more music from the accordion and saxophone a young bertsulari or poet improvised verses in my honour and sang cradle-songs in Basque. His tragic expressive face gave to every song he sang an added significance. He must belong to the nomadic type, I thought, as I watched him dramatizing his song. He had an uncanny power of changing the expression of his face suddenly from melancholy to wild, unrestrained gaiety, and in that mood he would utter any mad thought that came into his head. When it was my turn to perform I told the company stories of vampires as I felt under the shadow of the aquelarre, but I remembered the tune the Basque children sang when they ran from farm to farm lighting fires to frighten away the witches:

    The tune must have been a magic one, for it roused the sleeping duende, or demon, in the company and they all began to stamp in time and sing verses in Basque, and no sooner did I end than the accordion and the saxophone took up the tune and in an instant everyone was dancing and shouting “Uju.” After the dance the guests in turn told anecdotes and stories of the evil eye and the strange cures adopted by curanderos and witch doctors in the villages. When it came to the turn of the nomadic Basque he assumed complete ascendancy over the party. In the earlier stages of the fiesta I had only been aware of the great contrast between the rollicking, carefree fishermen and the dour, cautious man of the fields, but now my attention was monopolized by the melancholy bertsulari and his companions who were a veritable mine of strange customs and superstitions. With him was a lonely wild-eyed man with tousled hair who joined in the Basque songs with great gusto and executed a pas seul when I played my witch dance. When I played the exorcizing tune of St. John

    he began firing a series of rapid questions at me, but giving the answers himself in a queer jerky voice and started to caper and jump over an imaginary fire, shouting:

    Here’s to St. John and St. Peter!
    Out with the bad and in with the good:
    Bread and wine in plenty in Spain
    Nought but the itch and mange for France!

    Then his questions became more personal:
    “Have you any children?”
    “Yes—two.”
    “Are they plagued with scurf?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Remember you can cure them by carrying them three times round a rose tree on St. John’s Eve.”
    “Do you carry a stick?”
    “Yes—a good Irish blackthorn.”
    “ ’Tis a lucky stick: ’twill protect you against thunderbolts. But tell me, do you know what to do if your brat has a hernia? I can give you a tip what to do. On Saint John’s Eve at dead of night take him with you to the nearest oak tree accompanied by two friends of yours whose name is John. Just on the tick of midnight make the two Johns climb the tree and pass the child up to them, but put him standing in the centre of the tree with the two Johns facing one another on separate branches. One of them must take the child in his arms, and as the clock strikes twelve he must say: ‘Juanek uztan zaitu [John leaves you]’ as he passes the child to the other John, who must immediately reply: ‘Juanek artzen zaitu [John receives you]’ as he receives him in his arms. They must pass the child rapidly to and fro from one to the other, saying these words until the clock has struck twelve times. They then remain silent for a moment before descending from the tree. So I’ve given you the genuine Basque cure for hernia, and a far better one than any of your crazy Gypsy quackery.”
    Nemesio, for that was his name, had a cure for every ailment under the sun, but I have rarely in my life ever met a man who was so haunted by witches, he-goats, and old men of the wood. By profession he was a butcher, but he had none of the toughness and