197. St. James and St. Andrew

 197. St. James and St. Andrew

And we made it! We entered Santiago de Compostela as part of a train of pilgrims we had met at the inn. They were beating drums and jubilantly singing the Dum Pater Familias, Hymnus Peregrinorum . We made quite a show, even for fairyland,  with our banners all unfurled and in our very best apparel.  

And now a word about where we were, a word I should have said before our pilgrimage began. St. James the Elder was beheaded in his homeland and the martyr’s body was laid by his followers in a rudderless barque. This little ship was led by angels all the way to the coast of Galicia, where it was finally buried in a necropolis out in an open field.  Centuries later a hermit who lived by the field saw a strange sight. Every night, the sky full of stars would illuminate the field, but there was one particular spot that a star lit up so brightly it could only mean the star was trying to say something. The hermit spoke with the local authorities and they dug up the spot where the star shone and found the remains of St. James. A cathedral was built to keep  the remains of the saint in, and there they have been venerated till today. It is a magnificent monument, which I will not describe here for I couldn’t do it justice. My advice is for you to see it for yourself.

We admired the cathedral from the outside, but didn’t step immediately inside. First was the delicate matter of taking our passports to the pilgrim’s office and seeing if we could obtain certificates of completion of the pilgrimage. I took the briefcase where I kept all my party’s passports and checked them. Each had more seals than were required to claim a certificate of completion of the pilgrimage. But fairies being what we are, and all of our seals coming from supernatural establishments, there were no dates on them. How could I not have asked the people who sealed our passports to add the date to their seals? When I told Alpin he might not get his certificate because of this mistake, he took a pen and began to write down dates on the seals of his passport himself. But he got the dates and the places mixed up.

“You fix this, Arley,” he said shrugging. “It’s your mistake, so it’s your problem. Just be sure to return with my certificate,” he said. "It could be easy to. People are lazy, like you have been. They might not bother to check the passports."

 While Alpin stuffed himself on St. James’ Tart, I entered the office wondering how long it would take whoever was in charge to kick me out of there. And to my surprise and subsequent joy, I found Don Alonso within, in the company of Don Caralampio.

“Here you have them!” they said, before I could even speak. I had thought we had to fetch them personally, and to show all the seals we had on our passports, but this is what mortals call the other world and here things are different. I clutched the folder with the certificates I was handed and breathed with relief as I stuffed it in my briefcase.  Even the dragon flies had one. No one had been forgotten and left out.

“You see? It wasn’t impossible, was it? Ask and you will receive. Did you learn anything on this trip? And how is your allergy? It’s been giving you worse trouble than Alpin, hasn’t it?”

I had learned that if you don’t become discouraged and there is help out there and you accept it, you just might reach your goal.  And my allergy was not bothering me at all just then.  

I told Don Caralampio I could never thank him enough for lending us the relic, it had made all the difference, and I asked him if I was to return it to him now that we had ended our pilgrimage.

“No, no. Not now. You return it where you received it, just as I told you before. You still have places to go to. To St. Andrew’s, and to the cape of the end of the world too, isn’t that so?”

I was very, very happy to hear I could still count on the relic.

Don Caralampio said we ought to go give the saint a hug, which is something pilgrims do when they get to him. I thought we would go behind the magnificent golden altar and give the image there a pat on the shoulder, but this is, as I have said, another world. And here saints are all ubiquitous. Just outside the cathedral, there was a queu and at the end of it, a group of people were circling someone or something. They stepped aside, opening the circle a bit so we could pass, and there was a man with a large brown hat and a crook and a cloak all covered with cockle shells  sitting on a stool there and giving out free hugs. I was shy and smiled and nodded  and receieved my hug, but Alpin engaged in conversation with the Son of Thunder and I went cold wondering what he was saying and hoping it wouldn’t be anything offensive and tried to think all would go well. The scene with Alpin and the saint reminded me of when kids sit on Santa´s  lap and ask for toys and I was again expecting the worse though really trying not to, when it was over and it was now Dolphus and Vinny’s turn.

“What were you two talking about?” I asked Alpin.

“None of your business,” said Alpin. “But he said his almond tart is equally good everywhere here, so I guess it won’t get any better than what I’ve tasted. Not that that was bad. I’m going straight for more. And he said there are chocolates called rocks of the saint that are good too.”

We invited Don Caralampio and Don Alonso’s party to have luch with us, and spent part of the afternoon telling each other how our trips had gone. Then we went to buy souvenirs and gifts for our friends and families.  

We bought cloaks with cockle shells sewn all over them and I drew out my list and bought like hundreds of pieces of Sargadelos pottery. My favorites were the little  meigas fóra  (Beat it, witches!),  defensive amulets in red, white and blue, sometimes with a touch of green or yellow,  for my sisters, so they could make themselves lovely necklaces with them. I also bought  three tea sets of Sargadelos pottery, and a chocolate set for Doña Estrella,  and boxes shaped like doves to keep herbs in, and emerald green frogs and wide-eyed owls for luck.  Being fairies, we are not offended by the fora meigas. Witches abound here, great big ones flying on huge broomsticks, larger than any I have ever seen, while the local fairies are very small and discreet and can only rarely be seen flying on swallows or in carts drawn by one or two sparrows. These last only exchanged a few words with the Leafies and were shy of Alpin and me.    

Don Alonso said he and his party would remain for some time in Santiago, but my party left the next day. We were off to St. Andrew’s. 

“Why,” asked Alpin, munching on chocolate rocks of St. James, “haven’t we left any stones on the road?”

There is a tradition among the mortals of leaving stones in heaps in certain parts of the road to Santiago. It is not clear what the meaning of these heaps of stones, called humilladeros or milladoiros, is. They are usually found in spots where it is especially difficult to transit, and some say that they are a symbol of achievement. Others say mortal pilgrims deposit their sins there, ridding themselves of this gross load and promise to try not to become thus burdened again. Yet others say these stones originally marked the spots where weak and ill pilgrims passed away on the road, never making it to their terrestrial goal. In any case, it is mortals who are concerned with these stones. Fairies do not tend to move stones unless the stones ask them to or they want to build something like a bridge or a house, or mark boundaries.      

“Well,” said Alpin, when I had explained this to him, “one thing I know for sure is I’m not leaving a single chocolate rock anywhere.”

And then he made an announcement.

“Arley, I want you to know that this is the moment I have chosen to begin to eat the celebrated local seafood. From now on, faux fish, faux octopus and faux seafood is what I will want. You may have observed I have avoided it up till now because I only want the very best and the freshest and this I am likely to obtain as we travel along the coast.”

“I take warning,” I nodded. I looked about me, admiring the beauty of the view, but also looking out for something that had been worrying me. In Santiago, I had seen no sign of my uncles. And there was no trace of them around me now. Perhaps they were up to something else, something that had nothing to do with Clepeta. I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the presence of my uncles meant trouble. From them. But on the other, it could mean protection too. From Clepeta. I couldn’t get that knife out of my head.

I knew we had reached St. Andrew’s territory the minute I saw his stone boat. This is a long, boat-shaped rock, balanced on other stones. In the mortal world it doesn’t look much like the inverted ship it is supposed to be, but in the fairy world this rock is definitely something one could sail on. The rock is said to balance back and forth when it wants to foretell a disaster. Fortunately, it was very still.

While our steeds chatted with local cows and wild horses, we approached the church of St. Andrew. St. Andrew’s is very different from St. James. His church is in a small village, where very few people live. It is far from grandiose, being little more than a chapel, but very curious, made of stone in a style known as fisherman’s  gothic. It is a bit barroque too. Saint Andrew is not buried there, but  within it there are curious wall paintings about him and it does house a small relic of St. Andrew, part of a finger, I think. There were lots of ex-voto gifts in this chapel. These are offerings made to thank the saint for favors. Most were made of wax and shaped like hands and feet or limbs, but there were braids of mortal hair too and other ítems.

Outside, we paused to drink water from the three spouts of a holy fountain, whose source is supposed to be right under the main altar. Then we each made a wish and cast a piece of bread into the water. The pieces of bread floated, so our wishes would probably come true.

“I am not going to wonder what Alpin has wished and be scared of the consequences of his wish,” I said to myself firmly. I was trying to put into practice what I had learned on the road. "I am going to be calm and collected."  

“Well,” I said to Alpin, “Now that we have come all the way  here, we won’t need to return three times when we are dead and in the form of animals we have reincarnated into.”

“We’re not going to be dead, silly,” said Alpin. “You are so scared of silly stuff, Arley. Of everything. You’ve made me come all the way here instead of taking me directly to Clepeta. And these people don’t even give one a certificate, do they?”

“I have no idea, but we can buy some sanandresiños for our moms and sisters," I said. These are tiny amulets made from bread crumbs and painted in bright colours. They come in different shapes, each shape offering a different kind of luck. A dove-shaped sanandresiño should give one inner peace, for instance. I bought one of those for myself and immediately hung it round my neck.

I did that because Alpin wanted to buy enamouring grass. Enamouring grass – armeria maritima or sea thrift - is a plant with a purple flower  that is supposed to make people fall in love with you if you can manage to slip it into their pockets, or pulverize it and make them eat or drink something you have mixed it with.

“Why would you want to buy that?” I asked Alpin.

“In case Clepeta decides she won’t have me. I’m not taking no for an answer. It’s too humiliating to be rejected.”

“Are you out of your mind? Put yourself in her place! How would you feel if someone bewitched you with a herb like that?”

“Flattered. I would understand why they had done it. It would mean I’m too hot for someone to let me get away.”

“If you are that cool then you should have no problem with Clepeta,” I said.  “Leave that stuff where you found it.”

But he didn’t. He said he had already paid for it. And I said I would never speak to him again if he tried to use it.

“All’s fair in love and war, Arley.”

And hearing that, I silently declared war  on him and secretly determined to steal the grass from him and cast  it into the sea or a fire the moment I got the chance to.

“And now, let me show you something that should be worth anyone’s while,” I said, though privately I felt Alpin would not appreciate what I was about to show him.

I took Alpin to a fay inn built on a vantage point from which one could get the best view of the cliffs of Vixia Herbeira and of the Atlantic Ocean. These cliffs are the highest cliffs in continental Europe. While Alpin sucked on faux barnacles and ate Neda river bread and honey, I contemplated the view until a mist that threatened to become a dense fog covered it up and we retired for the night.