Highway Legends
From The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes:
Andalucía is the region that produced the most famous highwaymen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Names like el Tragabuches, el Vivillo, el Pernales, or Pasos Largos were names to be whispered. Most acted out of desperation or after they had become outlaws for other crimes, such as Tragabuches, who killed his wife and her lover when he found them out. Upon committing the crime he ran and joined the group Los Siete Niños de Écija. They then sowed terror on the roads in the hills of Málaga. Others, such as Pasos Largos, acted out of revenge. This man, born in 1873, was the last acting bandolero in Spain. He loved to hunt and wasn't above hunting illegally and breaking into an untended farmhouse or two. One time the Guardia Civil caught him after someone had betrayed him. The Guards decided to give Pasos Largos a lesson. They beat him, hitting him repeatedly, trying to convince him of the error of his ways. He decided the error of his ways was trying to conform to society, so he vowed vengeance and became a bandolero. His first act was to kill the man who had betrayed him and his son. Then he hit the hills and robbed all and sundry. Until one day he kidnapped a local landowner and held him for ransom. In the shootout Pasos Largos was injured and taken prisoner. He was condemned to life in prison, but eventually set free in 1932 for good behavior. Then he went to work for the man whom he had kidnapped. But a good life was boring, and he went back to furtive hunting and robbing, and eventually had to make another run for it into the hills. He was surprised in his hideout one day by the Guardia Civil and taken down with two shots. It was March 18th, 1934.
The poor, the dispossessed, those without riches to lose, tended to see these men as Spanish Robin Hoods. They stole from the rich and sometimes shared with the poor who gave them what food they had. The most famous bandolero of Galicia grew into a myth which no one knows about now. Asking for books and information on Xan Quinto yesterday, no one had any idea who he was. Local folklore is fast disappearing into the hole that is oblivion.
Xan Quinto was from the parish of Araño in Rianxo. His family seemed to have been from near the parish church; his descendants, known as the Xanquintos, live in a house there. His real name was Antonio Rodriguez Otero and he was born in 1847. He had five siblings, and a brother thirteen years younger than him, Ramón, became a member of the band. The band was never very big, four or five members at the most. They were Xan Quinto, his brother Ramón, Xosé Morales Resende, and Manuel Romero Agrasar, knicknamed O Navallas. The last happened to be my great-grandfather.
They started out stealing flour from the local mill, and grew into bigger things. There are many legends of rich folk they robbed from and poor folk they protected. Though also of some extortion rackets, as well. It's said that some of the richer households in the area were never assaulted because they paid protection money to the band. One of the stories is that they waylaid a man walking along the road in Bexo, where it used to be wooded and lonely. The man asked for clemency as Xan Quinto took his money, saying he was going to the fair in Padron to buy a pair of oxen he needed to work the land. Xan Quinto told him to continue to Padron and choose the best pair of oxen at the fair. He would meet the man there. And so it happened, but the man said the best pair cost far more than the money Xan had taken. So Xan Quinto gave the man his money and more to cover the cost. The man bought the oxen, and then Xan Quinto stole all the seller's money. Many were scared of him in the surrounding villages, but many also received his largesse.
Eventually he was caught and tried for a murder in the parish of Asados in 1870 and sent to prison. By 1874 he had escaped. My great-grandfather also ended up in prison at some point, where his health was broken. But O Navallas died in his bed at the end of his life, whereas it's not sure just where Xan Quinto died or where he was buried. Some say he was knifed in Portugal, others say he died from a beating he received in Cordeiro, a parish on the other side of the river Ulla from here, and reached his home where he died. The story goes on to say that his band buried him in an unknown spot. As an outlaw he was denied the churchyard. Nothing true is known of his end, but his legend grew and was told by the fire in parishes all around. Ramón del Valle-Inclán, a locally born Galician writer, wrote a story called Juan Quinto based on stories people told him about the bandolero. It's published in his anthology Jardín Umbrío.
With time, though, legends grow and wane. The legends of the Andalucian bandoleros grew, and in the late 1970's Curro Jiménez, a Spanish television series about bandoleros became popular. But the Galician legend of Xan Quinto died out. So much so that now the only ones who seem to remember are the local people, where the families still keep alive ancestral memories.
'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'
That ballad is a romantic conception of a highwayman, a bandolero. Though, by the time it was published in 1906, highwaymen had disappeared from Scottish and English roads. But not from the Spanish roads. One of the last bandoleros was from Galicia, Mamed Casanova, better known as Toribio, from a small parish in the township of Mañon. In 1900 he and his friends assaulted the parish priest's house and one of the group shot the housekeeper when she recognized them. After two years on the run, Toribio was tricked into accepting a dinner invitation and caught. At first he was condemned to death, but the king later pardoned the sentence and he served thirty years in jail. Mamed Casanova was what would now be known as a common criminal. The romantic bandoleros remained in the past.
Andalucía is the region that produced the most famous highwaymen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Names like el Tragabuches, el Vivillo, el Pernales, or Pasos Largos were names to be whispered. Most acted out of desperation or after they had become outlaws for other crimes, such as Tragabuches, who killed his wife and her lover when he found them out. Upon committing the crime he ran and joined the group Los Siete Niños de Écija. They then sowed terror on the roads in the hills of Málaga. Others, such as Pasos Largos, acted out of revenge. This man, born in 1873, was the last acting bandolero in Spain. He loved to hunt and wasn't above hunting illegally and breaking into an untended farmhouse or two. One time the Guardia Civil caught him after someone had betrayed him. The Guards decided to give Pasos Largos a lesson. They beat him, hitting him repeatedly, trying to convince him of the error of his ways. He decided the error of his ways was trying to conform to society, so he vowed vengeance and became a bandolero. His first act was to kill the man who had betrayed him and his son. Then he hit the hills and robbed all and sundry. Until one day he kidnapped a local landowner and held him for ransom. In the shootout Pasos Largos was injured and taken prisoner. He was condemned to life in prison, but eventually set free in 1932 for good behavior. Then he went to work for the man whom he had kidnapped. But a good life was boring, and he went back to furtive hunting and robbing, and eventually had to make another run for it into the hills. He was surprised in his hideout one day by the Guardia Civil and taken down with two shots. It was March 18th, 1934.
The poor, the dispossessed, those without riches to lose, tended to see these men as Spanish Robin Hoods. They stole from the rich and sometimes shared with the poor who gave them what food they had. The most famous bandolero of Galicia grew into a myth which no one knows about now. Asking for books and information on Xan Quinto yesterday, no one had any idea who he was. Local folklore is fast disappearing into the hole that is oblivion.
Xan Quinto was from the parish of Araño in Rianxo. His family seemed to have been from near the parish church; his descendants, known as the Xanquintos, live in a house there. His real name was Antonio Rodriguez Otero and he was born in 1847. He had five siblings, and a brother thirteen years younger than him, Ramón, became a member of the band. The band was never very big, four or five members at the most. They were Xan Quinto, his brother Ramón, Xosé Morales Resende, and Manuel Romero Agrasar, knicknamed O Navallas. The last happened to be my great-grandfather.
They started out stealing flour from the local mill, and grew into bigger things. There are many legends of rich folk they robbed from and poor folk they protected. Though also of some extortion rackets, as well. It's said that some of the richer households in the area were never assaulted because they paid protection money to the band. One of the stories is that they waylaid a man walking along the road in Bexo, where it used to be wooded and lonely. The man asked for clemency as Xan Quinto took his money, saying he was going to the fair in Padron to buy a pair of oxen he needed to work the land. Xan Quinto told him to continue to Padron and choose the best pair of oxen at the fair. He would meet the man there. And so it happened, but the man said the best pair cost far more than the money Xan had taken. So Xan Quinto gave the man his money and more to cover the cost. The man bought the oxen, and then Xan Quinto stole all the seller's money. Many were scared of him in the surrounding villages, but many also received his largesse.
Eventually he was caught and tried for a murder in the parish of Asados in 1870 and sent to prison. By 1874 he had escaped. My great-grandfather also ended up in prison at some point, where his health was broken. But O Navallas died in his bed at the end of his life, whereas it's not sure just where Xan Quinto died or where he was buried. Some say he was knifed in Portugal, others say he died from a beating he received in Cordeiro, a parish on the other side of the river Ulla from here, and reached his home where he died. The story goes on to say that his band buried him in an unknown spot. As an outlaw he was denied the churchyard. Nothing true is known of his end, but his legend grew and was told by the fire in parishes all around. Ramón del Valle-Inclán, a locally born Galician writer, wrote a story called Juan Quinto based on stories people told him about the bandolero. It's published in his anthology Jardín Umbrío.
With time, though, legends grow and wane. The legends of the Andalucian bandoleros grew, and in the late 1970's Curro Jiménez, a Spanish television series about bandoleros became popular. But the Galician legend of Xan Quinto died out. So much so that now the only ones who seem to remember are the local people, where the families still keep alive ancestral memories.
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| Xan Quinto's house, which no longer stands. |
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