Spanish views from a small town

All Hallow's Eve approaches, with its mythical creatures ready to roam the night, banging on doors and demanding their ration of sugar. A night that was once believed to herald a new year, and on which the veil between the dead and the living was thought to be spider web thin, is now a horrendous commercial holiday meant to sell candy, everything pumpkin spice, and costumes of all kinds, including witch costumes with their pointy hat and misshapen broom. Fellow blogger Donnalane Nelson mentioned the witches of history in her blog, The Expat Writer , talking about how they had been treated, and how many are now being exonerated from the crimes they had been excecuted for. She mentioned that Scotland was the country that holds the record for those hunted down and killed. I assume part of the reason for such zealous hunts was the arrival of Protestantism in the form of strict Scottish Presbyterianism, that would tolerate no religious rival, especially Catholicism. We had our own witch...

Tonight is Walpurgis Eve. It is the eve of Beltane. Tonight, all witches roam and hold sway. To keep them away from our homes, our animals, and our means of transport, broom must be hung on doors, gates, and cars.  It is an ancient custom Christianized by Saint Walpurga, whose intercession was also requested for protection against witches, just because she had been an abbess in what was later to become Germany, and had converted the locals to Christianity. (This is because pagan beliefs were once thought to be a form of Devil worshipping, so, if she converted people, she fought against the Devil.) Making her saint day on the first of May is one form of Christianizing the pagan festival of Beltane. The other is to hang the broom to sweep away the witches (pagans) who might roam the night.  Broom, the plant, has long connotations in magic. It is a plant sacred to the gods, and was used even in ancient Rome to sweep away negative magic from a house where a baby had been born, by ...

Today the sky has decided to tumble down upon us. It's grey, damp, and with a permanent fine rain. Yesterday was similar, but not as closed down, with a few intervals of just plain grey. In one of those intervals I went out and got my broom. I'd almost forgotten that it was May Eve, or Walpurgis Night, until our daughter sent me a text telling me what she was going to do, since she couldn't go walking out to the woods surrounding Santiago. This month has been one of the longest in my life. There have been others in which I lost count of time, but this year, it's ridiculous. In my head, we're still in the middle of April, and Easter was a week ago. So, during a cloudy interval yesterday afternoon, I hopped across the road to the woods (illegal, yes) and cut off a few branches of broom. Towards sunset, my husband and I broke off the sprigs and put them on both cars, on the gates, and on the doors of our house and my parent's old house, now empty.  It's a...

Spain is an old, old land. Many peoples of many beliefs have mingled together on thi s same patch of earth over the past two thousand years. The gods of one p eople become the demons of another generation. Hallowed priests transformed into demonic witches, forcing our ancestors to be w atchf ul of the Ev il Eye. Spells and curses acquired more power than prior blessings. Legends of witches' rings and aquelarres acquire d veracity and ha ve survived to ou r day. Even today in Galicia, older folk will vehemently beli e ve meigas still inhabit our midst. Unlucky people will discover eggs buried in their g arden an d know that someone wishes them ill. Others might s mell suspiciously of garlic, and will pull an amul e t garlic clove out of their pocket along with spare change, when they go to pay their groceries,. There are places here wher e witches used to g ather. The bell of the church at S an Salvador de Coiro, in Cangas, used to ring by itself on Saturday nights to ga...