Our Own Castle
There is a memory from long ago, when I was just five years old. It consists of me at the beach, looking across a small river to the remains of a stone tower. The tower isn't very high, and much of it is missing. It is a memory I always associated with the beach A Torre (literally, The Tower), in the nearby parish of Taragoña.
That year my parents brought me here on summer vacation. I was only five years old, so my memories are few and I mix up some with the year I was nine, which summer we also came to visit. Yet that is one of the memories that remains fixed in my mind's eye.
Since then, in the almost twenty-seven years I've been living here, I have learned of an archeological site right next to the beach. I even took my daughter once, when she was in her phase of planning on becoming an archeologist and the real archeologists were there, trying to find artifacts. The Castelo da Lúa, so called because of a legend associated with the place, is now accessible from the beach, thanks to a wooden bridge built some years ago. Before that, one had to navigate the narrow lanes of the neighborhood of O Pazo (literally, The Palace) to arrive at a peninsula that was cut off at high tide until some decades ago.
All that remains are the stones set in the ground that trace the foundations of what had been a decent medieval castle guarding the innermost estuary. All the rest has been carted off through the centuries to be used as building material in O Pazo and nearby Rianxo. The bell tower of the parish church in Rianxo was built in the middle of the eighteenth century with stones from the castle. Perhaps what I remember seeing were the stones just above the foundation, still waiting to be taken and used for the construction of some house.
There are legends, though. The most rudimentary speak of enchantments, a secret underground passage, and wizard Moors. One must understand that in rural Galicia, any reference to Moors locally are really references to magical beings, or even the old hill fort dwellers that are ancestors of most of us. Children were once frightened with being given to the Moors if they were bad. Atavistic memory is long. In the castle's case, it could also be because the Knights Templar occupied it for a while, though it was originally built by a local lord, Paio Gómez Chariño, around the thirteenth century. During the Revolta Irmandiña (a Peasant's Revolt in Galicia in the fifteenth century, like many others across Europe at that time) it was destroyed, only to be rebuilt and then destroyed one last time by order of the Catholic Monarchs as a way to establish their ascendancy over all the other feudal lords.
The Knights Templar are involved in the legend that gives the castle its name. Apparently, the Knights fought a local lord and took some of the lord's defenders prisoner, along with his daughter, as a bargaining chip. The young woman took care of one of her father's men, with whom she was in love. One of the Knights took pity on them, and one partly cloudy moonlit night led them to a boat at the foot of the tower. They rowed away, with such bad luck that the clouds gave way to the moon and they were seen by a sentinel. (At this point, one calls into question the strategical thinking of a Knight that should have been inured to optimal battle conditions, and should have known to wait for the new moon.) Arrows were shot, the soldier was hit with three as he covered his fair lady. A rogue wave appeared, and capsized the boat. The next day, their bodies were washed ashore, and they were buried at the foot of the tower. They said that on moonlit nights, the moonbeams shone on their tomb, hence the name, Castelo da Lúa, Castle of the Moon.
Legends aside, standing there on the wooden bridge above the foundation of the castle, now you need a little bit of imagination as you look out toward the estuary, to see what once was. Take away the mussel farms, all the houses that ramble down the hills to the water, all the pleasure and fishing boats out there, and all the sunbathers toasting in the sun, and perhaps you can see what the defenders once saw. The beautiful green hills, rolling down to the unquiet blue water, which stretches out to the Atlantic and infinity, then meet your eyes. Those hills and that water were already there when the castle rose from its peninsula. And they're still there, though the castle is a sigh in history.
That year my parents brought me here on summer vacation. I was only five years old, so my memories are few and I mix up some with the year I was nine, which summer we also came to visit. Yet that is one of the memories that remains fixed in my mind's eye.
Since then, in the almost twenty-seven years I've been living here, I have learned of an archeological site right next to the beach. I even took my daughter once, when she was in her phase of planning on becoming an archeologist and the real archeologists were there, trying to find artifacts. The Castelo da Lúa, so called because of a legend associated with the place, is now accessible from the beach, thanks to a wooden bridge built some years ago. Before that, one had to navigate the narrow lanes of the neighborhood of O Pazo (literally, The Palace) to arrive at a peninsula that was cut off at high tide until some decades ago.
All that remains are the stones set in the ground that trace the foundations of what had been a decent medieval castle guarding the innermost estuary. All the rest has been carted off through the centuries to be used as building material in O Pazo and nearby Rianxo. The bell tower of the parish church in Rianxo was built in the middle of the eighteenth century with stones from the castle. Perhaps what I remember seeing were the stones just above the foundation, still waiting to be taken and used for the construction of some house.
There are legends, though. The most rudimentary speak of enchantments, a secret underground passage, and wizard Moors. One must understand that in rural Galicia, any reference to Moors locally are really references to magical beings, or even the old hill fort dwellers that are ancestors of most of us. Children were once frightened with being given to the Moors if they were bad. Atavistic memory is long. In the castle's case, it could also be because the Knights Templar occupied it for a while, though it was originally built by a local lord, Paio Gómez Chariño, around the thirteenth century. During the Revolta Irmandiña (a Peasant's Revolt in Galicia in the fifteenth century, like many others across Europe at that time) it was destroyed, only to be rebuilt and then destroyed one last time by order of the Catholic Monarchs as a way to establish their ascendancy over all the other feudal lords.
The Knights Templar are involved in the legend that gives the castle its name. Apparently, the Knights fought a local lord and took some of the lord's defenders prisoner, along with his daughter, as a bargaining chip. The young woman took care of one of her father's men, with whom she was in love. One of the Knights took pity on them, and one partly cloudy moonlit night led them to a boat at the foot of the tower. They rowed away, with such bad luck that the clouds gave way to the moon and they were seen by a sentinel. (At this point, one calls into question the strategical thinking of a Knight that should have been inured to optimal battle conditions, and should have known to wait for the new moon.) Arrows were shot, the soldier was hit with three as he covered his fair lady. A rogue wave appeared, and capsized the boat. The next day, their bodies were washed ashore, and they were buried at the foot of the tower. They said that on moonlit nights, the moonbeams shone on their tomb, hence the name, Castelo da Lúa, Castle of the Moon.
Legends aside, standing there on the wooden bridge above the foundation of the castle, now you need a little bit of imagination as you look out toward the estuary, to see what once was. Take away the mussel farms, all the houses that ramble down the hills to the water, all the pleasure and fishing boats out there, and all the sunbathers toasting in the sun, and perhaps you can see what the defenders once saw. The beautiful green hills, rolling down to the unquiet blue water, which stretches out to the Atlantic and infinity, then meet your eyes. Those hills and that water were already there when the castle rose from its peninsula. And they're still there, though the castle is a sigh in history.
Comments
Post a Comment