The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

bridge the whole countryside became suffused in a deep glow, and through the arches church steeples, houses and trees were reflected in the still water as in a mirror. Over the bridge towards us came a large flock of sheep followed by the shepherd and his dog: behind the bleating multitude the long, narrow Road of St. James stretched away into the distance through the town. Along that road century after century the unending procession of pilgrims in their broad-brimmed hats and cloaks had passed. Onwards with their long staffs they pressed fatalistically, and as far as the bridge with them went the gaily dressed lads and lasses of the town to cheer them on their way. As the dark line of pilgrims departed and wound its way through the valley into the shadows the sounds of their chanted hymn of farewell still echoed faintly in the breeze.
    As it was Spy Wednesday, Don Maríano took me next to the Church of Santiago. Here I saw the finest image of St. James I have ever seen, with the exception of the sculptural masterpiece of Master Mateo on the Pórtico de la Gloria in Santiago. But whereas the seated image of the Saint in the portico shows him when he has already reached his abode of everlasting bliss, here in Puente la Reina, on the Jacobean Road, the image shows him as a pilgrim who has halted by a wayside church to pray. Although his feet are bare and his habit ragged, his expression is one of strength, majesty and severity. He has long, tousled hair and beard like one who has slept out under the stars many a night, and his staff is not the usual long slender staff of pilgrims, but a short stout one, such as wandering Gypsies carry, his broad-brimmed hat has three shells on it and is kept in place by a chin strap, but in his left hand he holds his book, the Protevangel, and at the same time grasps the folds of his cloak. The statue is made of wood and is undoubtedly one of the finest Jacobean works of art of the fourteenth century. *
    My most vivid memory of the days spent in Puente la Reina was the party given in my honour by Don Maríano’s friends in one of the huge vaulted cellars or bodegas, black with the grime of centuries. By the glimmering light of candles and the traditional candil we sat amidst the giant casks of the Dionysian Phalanx, quaffing the celebrated wine of this ancient town, which makes my brain nimble and imaginative. I found myself hovering at first between macabre visions a la Edgar Allan Poe suggested by the monstrous regiment of casks stretching into the gloom beyond our radius of candlelight, and Sancho Panzesque memories of the bodegas of La Guardia and Toboso in La Mancha evoked by a row of huge, bloated pigskins near me, some of them so bursting with wine that they stood up, ears first, looking like live pigs leering at me maliciously.
    This is not an atmosphere conducive to Lenten fasting,” said I to our host, the owner of the cellar and one of the wealthiest men in Puente la Reina.
    To which he replied solemnly: “Remember what the Hebrew psalmist has said, my friend: ‘He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and the herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthened! man’s heart.’ Remember that pilgrims have always been great wine-bibbers: that’s why for a thousand years they have been calling here at this town of Our Lady of the Vineyards.”
    Then he shouted to his faithful cellarman and escanciador, Isidro: “Hola, Isidro! bring the lomo, the bread and the olives: good wine needs a little blotting paper.”
    Although we were filling ourselves with wine, the conversation was mainly about water. My friend, the schoolmaster Don Maríano, an expert on pilgrimages, was obsessed by the problem of the dangerous rivers which lay between Estella and Logroño.
    “The celebrated Aymery Picaud,” he said, “tells us in his Guia del Peregrino, that there is not a single safe river between Estella and Logroño; they are all deadly both for men and beast: even the fish of those rivers may not be eaten.”
    “The only river I have ever known,” I answered, “where they warned me not to eat the fish was at Bocigas, near Valladolid. There the fish were so full of arsenic that it actually preserved them and the people used to hang them up in their houses as ornaments. I am sure Aymery Picaud knew what he was talking about when he warns pilgrims