“My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.”
____ Thomas Merton, A Prayer[i]
Leave Sahagún over the río Cea
Through the poplar forest of martyrs’ spears
On the Way: The Ash Trees at the River Cea
I abandoned my boots without ceremony in the albergue at Sahagún. I had awakened in the morning convinced that St. John wanted me to jettison these cruel implements of peregrine inquisition. I had planned variously to hang them, burn them, drown them; but in the end, I simply ignored them and so cruelly spurned them.
Bereft of boots and shod in sandals, I left Sahagún going west and started early. Randi and I traveled over the río Cea, the site of St. Facundus’s martyrdom, into a grove of ash trees. This place is also scene to one of the legendary battles between Charlemagne and Aigolandus. Picaud tells us: “Sahagún, prosperous in all sorts of goods: a meadow is there in which, as it is reported, the sparkling spears of victorious warriors, planted for the glory of God, were once blooming.”[ii] What does this mean? One can read about it in the Pseudo-Turpin, in Latin if one wishes, or in translation in various modern tongues, but one can also read it told in an old way, in an old manner, and in a free translation, waxing poetic:
Hereabouts the traveller should find shivering and trembling under the inquiet airs, that wood of lances that burgeoned in token of coming martyrdom, which Turpin tells of: “And also some of the Crysten men the day tofore the battayle, did do amend and array their harneys, and set their tents nigh a river named Ceye [Cea], and pight there their spears, even in the place whereas the bodies of S. Facond and S. Primitif rested, where after was made a church devoutly founded, and also a strong city by the moyen of the said Charles, and in the place where the spears were pight, our Lord showed a great miracle. For of them that should die there and be glorified martyrs of God and crowned in heaven, their spears on the morn were founded all green, flouresshed and leaved which was a precedent sign that they which should die should have the joy in heaven. Each man took his own and cut off the boughs and leaves with which the leaves were planted and under-rooted, whereof in a little while after grew a great-wood, which standeth there yet.”[iii]
Fabulous, all of it, unquestionably; but touching nevertheless. I was thankful for the wood of ash, the bridge of stone, the river of water, and the cool crisp air, for it was pleasing to the senses, and a comfort to the soul. How the wood got there I shall never know (except that it has no ties to Charlemagne’s army), but that was wonderful, I know.
I I I
Tunc astiterunt quidam ex Christia-nis, qui sero ante diem belli arma bellica sua stu-diosissime praepa-rantes, astas suas erectas infixerunt in terra ante castra in pratis, videlicet iuxta praefatum fluxium, quas summo mane scortici-bus et frondibus decoratas invene-runt, hi scilicet qui in acie proxima martirii palmam Dei fide accepturi erant
To Calzada del Coto
Take the Real Camino francés
On the Way: Sahagún to Calzada del Coto
Departing Sahagún and the memories of Charlemagne, we went by way of the carretera until we reached the hermitage of San Roque just before the town of Calzada del Coto. At Calzada del Coto, pilgrims are given an option, for the road forks into two. The pilgrim can go to Mansilla de las Mulas either by way of Calzadilla de los Hermanillos on the calzada de los Peregrinos or by way of Bercianos del Real Camino on the Real Camino Francés. We opted to go on the Real Camino Francés, for it appeared to be shorter and more direct.
Nothing but plain, plain, plain . . .
Past the arroyo del Coso
Bercianos del Real Camino
West into El Burgo Ranero
Cross arroyo Olmo and arroyo Las Fuentes
El Burgo Ranero
Past Arroyo Buensolana and Valdeas-neros and Utielga, and Naval, and Valde-arcos into Reliegos
On the Way: Calzada del Coto to El Burgo Ranero
From Calzada del Coto we walked to Bercianos del Real Camino, and from there to El Burgo Ranero. At Burgo Ranero we stopped at a café and had a tortilla and a drink.
Lector: ¡Basta!
At Burgo Ranero we stopped. A fat Spanish pilgrim came in and ordered a coffee with brandy in it, with the greater weight of brandy. “An odd drink,” I thought, “for a pilgrim in the morning,” for such a drink would have lulled me to sleep. Many such drinks over the years not doubt had given him quite a belly.
From Burgo Ranero we took the Camino Real Francés to the town of Reliegos, and as I walked into Reliegos I received a gift, a mantra. It was the key to this part of the pilgrimage.
I I I
On the Way: Mantra for the Meseta
The plains of the meseta are a crucible for the pilgrim. They are a burden, a cross, a test. Pilgrims devise all sorts of mechanisms to adjust to the solitary and tedious demands of the meseta. Some avoid it altogether. Those who brave it have to grapple with it.
I used a mantra (so to speak). But the mantra was not mine; it was given me. I think the woman whose body was in the church at Sahagún may have had a hand in it. I found my mantra, and I found it in the last two lines of the last verse of the Dies Irae by the medieval Franciscan Thomas of Celano. The source was impeccable in its orthodoxy, which makes it commendable to any pilgrim:
Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce, Deus
Pie Iesu Domine
Dona eis Requiem.
I took the last two lines of this most marvelous sequence, and I found through a walking scansion that the syllables fit the arsis and thesis of my footsteps, the rhythm of my praying, and the burden of my pilgrimage.
L R L R L R L R
Pi e Ie su Do mi ne
L R L R L R L R
Do na e is Re qui em
And thus it was I received my catalectic trochaic dimeter mantra. For all the remaining days of the meseta my mantra served me well.
As I walked the meseta praying my mantra, I could see heat devils where the hot earth caused wavy gradients in the air. Like the heated, rarefied air rose in the meseta, so too, old, rarefied memories of childhood rose up as specters as I prayed for the souls of my parents. These were all wonderful, silly things of childhood: ditties, poems, rhymes, riddles, and jokes. From strc prst skrz krk of Prague to Є УХ НИЕМ of the Volga. From Johny Verbeck and the Old Gray Mare to Ich Bin Der Doktor Eisenbart and Fuchs du hast die Gans gestohlen. From the Poor Old Slave who went to rest in Tennesee, the battle between Abdul Abulbul Amir and Ivan Skavinsky Skavar to the Alma Llanera and the plains of Venezuela. These are the memories of my childhood, an amalgam of Europe, East and West, and America, North and South, and they are to be found shelved in the crannies of my mind, where they were once placed by the lips of my parents, to be drawn again in the heat of the meseta. Oh mental residue of my parents, who told these things to me with sweet lips that I had kissed I know not how oft of, but now shall never kiss again!
I I I
Picaud’s “Manx-illa”
The town of Reliegos was small and unkempt. The stores were dirty and smelled foul. The café there was tolerable, and gave us a dinner composed of salad, chicken, and spaghetti. Only slightly better than the town, the refugio was marginal. Whatever comfort it could have given was robbed by the loud snoring of a Spanish pilgrim. The pilgrim was obese, and we had some warning of what awaited us in the evening aforehand, for we heard him snoring while he took his siesta. So that evening I decided to use the trick that James, the retired army captain, taught me. I bought some cigarettes, broke off the filters, and placed them in my ears. The filters muffled the sound to some degree and bought me some sleep, but they had a habit of falling out. Throughout the night, I’d lose the cigarettes, and I would hunt the pack and place a new one in my ear. By the morning I had run through the whole pack.
The only good thing that I recall at Reliegos was my meeting with Thomas, a young Polish pilgrim, who spoke very broken English. He had a T-shirt, and on the front it displayed the medal of St. Benedict, with its cryptic letters:
The back of his T-shirt held the key.
Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux!
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux!
Vade Retro Satana
Non Suade Mihi Vana
Sunt Mala Quae Libas
Ipse Venena Bibas
Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti
Holy cross be my light!
Dragon never be my lead!
Get thee behind me, Satan,
Do not suggest to me your vanities
Evil are the things you offer
Drink your poison yourself
Holy Cross of Father Benedict
k
[i] Thomas Merton, A Prayer, Robinson, Anthology, at 135-36.
[ii] Melczer, Pilgrim’s Guide, at 87.
[iii] King, II.116-17. “My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.”
____ Thomas Merton, A Prayer[i]
Leave Sahagún over the río Cea
Through the poplar forest of martyrs’ spears
On the Way: The Ash Trees at the River Cea
I abandoned my boots without ceremony in the albergue at Sahagún. I had awakened in the morning convinced that St. John wanted me to jettison these cruel implements of peregrine inquisition. I had planned variously to hang them, burn them, drown them; but in the end, I simply ignored them and so cruelly spurned them.
Bereft of boots and shod in sandals, I left Sahagún going west and started early. Randi and I traveled over the río Cea, the site of St. Facundus’s martyrdom, into a grove of ash trees. This place is also scene to one of the legendary battles between Charlemagne and Aigolandus. Picaud tells us: “Sahagún, prosperous in all sorts of goods: a meadow is there in which, as it is reported, the sparkling spears of victorious warriors, planted for the glory of God, were once blooming.”[ii] What does this mean? One can read about it in the Pseudo-Turpin, in Latin if one wishes, or in translation in various modern tongues, but one can also read it told in an old way, in an old manner, and in a free translation, waxing poetic:
Hereabouts the traveller should find shivering and trembling under the inquiet airs, that wood of lances that burgeoned in token of coming martyrdom, which Turpin tells of: “And also some of the Crysten men the day tofore the battayle, did do amend and array their harneys, and set their tents nigh a river named Ceye [Cea], and pight there their spears, even in the place whereas the bodies of S. Facond and S. Primitif rested, where after was made a church devoutly founded, and also a strong city by the moyen of the said Charles, and in the place where the spears were pight, our Lord showed a great miracle. For of them that should die there and be glorified martyrs of God and crowned in heaven, their spears on the morn were founded all green, flouresshed and leaved which was a precedent sign that they which should die should have the joy in heaven. Each man took his own and cut off the boughs and leaves with which the leaves were planted and under-rooted, whereof in a little while after grew a great-wood, which standeth there yet.”[iii]
Fabulous, all of it, unquestionably; but touching nevertheless. I was thankful for the wood of ash, the bridge of stone, the river of water, and the cool crisp air, for it was pleasing to the senses, and a comfort to the soul. How the wood got there I shall never know (except that it has no ties to Charlemagne’s army), but that was wonderful, I know.
I I I
Tunc astiterunt quidam ex Christia-nis, qui sero ante diem belli arma bellica sua stu-diosissime praepa-rantes, astas suas erectas infixerunt in terra ante castra in pratis, videlicet iuxta praefatum fluxium, quas summo mane scortici-bus et frondibus decoratas invene-runt, hi scilicet qui in acie proxima martirii palmam Dei fide accepturi erant
To Calzada del Coto
Take the Real Camino francés
On the Way: Sahagún to Calzada del Coto
Departing Sahagún and the memories of Charlemagne, we went by way of the carretera until we reached the hermitage of San Roque just before the town of Calzada del Coto. At Calzada del Coto, pilgrims are given an option, for the road forks into two. The pilgrim can go to Mansilla de las Mulas either by way of Calzadilla de los Hermanillos on the calzada de los Peregrinos or by way of Bercianos del Real Camino on the Real Camino Francés. We opted to go on the Real Camino Francés, for it appeared to be shorter and more direct.
Nothing but plain, plain, plain . . .
Past the arroyo del Coso
Bercianos del Real Camino
West into El Burgo Ranero
Cross arroyo Olmo and arroyo Las Fuentes
El Burgo Ranero
Past Arroyo Buensolana and Valdeas-neros and Utielga, and Naval, and Valde-arcos into Reliegos
On the Way: Calzada del Coto to El Burgo Ranero
From Calzada del Coto we walked to Bercianos del Real Camino, and from there to El Burgo Ranero. At Burgo Ranero we stopped at a café and had a tortilla and a drink.
Lector: ¡Basta!
At Burgo Ranero we stopped. A fat Spanish pilgrim came in and ordered a coffee with brandy in it, with the greater weight of brandy. “An odd drink,” I thought, “for a pilgrim in the morning,” for such a drink would have lulled me to sleep. Many such drinks over the years not doubt had given him quite a belly.
From Burgo Ranero we took the Camino Real Francés to the town of Reliegos, and as I walked into Reliegos I received a gift, a mantra. It was the key to this part of the pilgrimage.
I I I
On the Way: Mantra for the Meseta
The plains of the meseta are a crucible for the pilgrim. They are a burden, a cross, a test. Pilgrims devise all sorts of mechanisms to adjust to the solitary and tedious demands of the meseta. Some avoid it altogether. Those who brave it have to grapple with it.
I used a mantra (so to speak). But the mantra was not mine; it was given me. I think the woman whose body was in the church at Sahagún may have had a hand in it. I found my mantra, and I found it in the last two lines of the last verse of the Dies Irae by the medieval Franciscan Thomas of Celano. The source was impeccable in its orthodoxy, which makes it commendable to any pilgrim:
Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce, Deus
Pie Iesu Domine
Dona eis Requiem.
I took the last two lines of this most marvelous sequence, and I found through a walking scansion that the syllables fit the arsis and thesis of my footsteps, the rhythm of my praying, and the burden of my pilgrimage.
L R L R L R L R
Pi e Ie su Do mi ne
L R L R L R L R
Do na e is Re qui em
And thus it was I received my catalectic trochaic dimeter mantra. For all the remaining days of the meseta my mantra served me well.
As I walked the meseta praying my mantra, I could see heat devils where the hot earth caused wavy gradients in the air. Like the heated, rarefied air rose in the meseta, so too, old, rarefied memories of childhood rose up as specters as I prayed for the souls of my parents. These were all wonderful, silly things of childhood: ditties, poems, rhymes, riddles, and jokes. From strc prst skrz krk of Prague to Є УХ НИЕМ of the Volga. From Johny Verbeck and the Old Gray Mare to Ich Bin Der Doktor Eisenbart and Fuchs du hast die Gans gestohlen. From the Poor Old Slave who went to rest in Tennesee, the battle between Abdul Abulbul Amir and Ivan Skavinsky Skavar to the Alma Llanera and the plains of Venezuela. These are the memories of my childhood, an amalgam of Europe, East and West, and America, North and South, and they are to be found shelved in the crannies of my mind, where they were once placed by the lips of my parents, to be drawn again in the heat of the meseta. Oh mental residue of my parents, who told these things to me with sweet lips that I had kissed I know not how oft of, but now shall never kiss again!
I I I
Picaud’s “Manx-illa”
The town of Reliegos was small and unkempt. The stores were dirty and smelled foul. The café there was tolerable, and gave us a dinner composed of salad, chicken, and spaghetti. Only slightly better than the town, the refugio was marginal. Whatever comfort it could have given was robbed by the loud snoring of a Spanish pilgrim. The pilgrim was obese, and we had some warning of what awaited us in the evening aforehand, for we heard him snoring while he took his siesta. So that evening I decided to use the trick that James, the retired army captain, taught me. I bought some cigarettes, broke off the filters, and placed them in my ears. The filters muffled the sound to some degree and bought me some sleep, but they had a habit of falling out. Throughout the night, I’d lose the cigarettes, and I would hunt the pack and place a new one in my ear. By the morning I had run through the whole pack.
The only good thing that I recall at Reliegos was my meeting with Thomas, a young Polish pilgrim, who spoke very broken English. He had a T-shirt, and on the front it displayed the medal of St. Benedict, with its cryptic letters:
The back of his T-shirt held the key.
Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux!
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux!
Vade Retro Satana
Non Suade Mihi Vana
Sunt Mala Quae Libas
Ipse Venena Bibas
Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti
Holy cross be my light!
Dragon never be my lead!
Get thee behind me, Satan,
Do not suggest to me your vanities
Evil are the things you offer
Drink your poison yourself
Holy Cross of Father Benedict
k
[i] Thomas Merton, A Prayer, Robinson, Anthology, at 135-36.
[ii] Melczer, Pilgrim’s Guide, at 87.
[iii] King, II.116-17.
____ Thomas Merton, A Prayer[i]
Leave Sahagún over the río Cea
Through the poplar forest of martyrs’ spears
On the Way: The Ash Trees at the River Cea
I abandoned my boots without ceremony in the albergue at Sahagún. I had awakened in the morning convinced that St. John wanted me to jettison these cruel implements of peregrine inquisition. I had planned variously to hang them, burn them, drown them; but in the end, I simply ignored them and so cruelly spurned them.
Bereft of boots and shod in sandals, I left Sahagún going west and started early. Randi and I traveled over the río Cea, the site of St. Facundus’s martyrdom, into a grove of ash trees. This place is also scene to one of the legendary battles between Charlemagne and Aigolandus. Picaud tells us: “Sahagún, prosperous in all sorts of goods: a meadow is there in which, as it is reported, the sparkling spears of victorious warriors, planted for the glory of God, were once blooming.”[ii] What does this mean? One can read about it in the Pseudo-Turpin, in Latin if one wishes, or in translation in various modern tongues, but one can also read it told in an old way, in an old manner, and in a free translation, waxing poetic:
Hereabouts the traveller should find shivering and trembling under the inquiet airs, that wood of lances that burgeoned in token of coming martyrdom, which Turpin tells of: “And also some of the Crysten men the day tofore the battayle, did do amend and array their harneys, and set their tents nigh a river named Ceye [Cea], and pight there their spears, even in the place whereas the bodies of S. Facond and S. Primitif rested, where after was made a church devoutly founded, and also a strong city by the moyen of the said Charles, and in the place where the spears were pight, our Lord showed a great miracle. For of them that should die there and be glorified martyrs of God and crowned in heaven, their spears on the morn were founded all green, flouresshed and leaved which was a precedent sign that they which should die should have the joy in heaven. Each man took his own and cut off the boughs and leaves with which the leaves were planted and under-rooted, whereof in a little while after grew a great-wood, which standeth there yet.”[iii]
Fabulous, all of it, unquestionably; but touching nevertheless. I was thankful for the wood of ash, the bridge of stone, the river of water, and the cool crisp air, for it was pleasing to the senses, and a comfort to the soul. How the wood got there I shall never know (except that it has no ties to Charlemagne’s army), but that was wonderful, I know.
I I I
Tunc astiterunt quidam ex Christia-nis, qui sero ante diem belli arma bellica sua stu-diosissime praepa-rantes, astas suas erectas infixerunt in terra ante castra in pratis, videlicet iuxta praefatum fluxium, quas summo mane scortici-bus et frondibus decoratas invene-runt, hi scilicet qui in acie proxima martirii palmam Dei fide accepturi erant
To Calzada del Coto
Take the Real Camino francés
On the Way: Sahagún to Calzada del Coto
Departing Sahagún and the memories of Charlemagne, we went by way of the carretera until we reached the hermitage of San Roque just before the town of Calzada del Coto. At Calzada del Coto, pilgrims are given an option, for the road forks into two. The pilgrim can go to Mansilla de las Mulas either by way of Calzadilla de los Hermanillos on the calzada de los Peregrinos or by way of Bercianos del Real Camino on the Real Camino Francés. We opted to go on the Real Camino Francés, for it appeared to be shorter and more direct.
Nothing but plain, plain, plain . . .
Past the arroyo del Coso
Bercianos del Real Camino
West into El Burgo Ranero
Cross arroyo Olmo and arroyo Las Fuentes
El Burgo Ranero
Past Arroyo Buensolana and Valdeas-neros and Utielga, and Naval, and Valde-arcos into Reliegos
On the Way: Calzada del Coto to El Burgo Ranero
From Calzada del Coto we walked to Bercianos del Real Camino, and from there to El Burgo Ranero. At Burgo Ranero we stopped at a café and had a tortilla and a drink.
Lector: ¡Basta!
At Burgo Ranero we stopped. A fat Spanish pilgrim came in and ordered a coffee with brandy in it, with the greater weight of brandy. “An odd drink,” I thought, “for a pilgrim in the morning,” for such a drink would have lulled me to sleep. Many such drinks over the years not doubt had given him quite a belly.
From Burgo Ranero we took the Camino Real Francés to the town of Reliegos, and as I walked into Reliegos I received a gift, a mantra. It was the key to this part of the pilgrimage.
I I I
On the Way: Mantra for the Meseta
The plains of the meseta are a crucible for the pilgrim. They are a burden, a cross, a test. Pilgrims devise all sorts of mechanisms to adjust to the solitary and tedious demands of the meseta. Some avoid it altogether. Those who brave it have to grapple with it.
I used a mantra (so to speak). But the mantra was not mine; it was given me. I think the woman whose body was in the church at Sahagún may have had a hand in it. I found my mantra, and I found it in the last two lines of the last verse of the Dies Irae by the medieval Franciscan Thomas of Celano. The source was impeccable in its orthodoxy, which makes it commendable to any pilgrim:
Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce, Deus
Pie Iesu Domine
Dona eis Requiem.
I took the last two lines of this most marvelous sequence, and I found through a walking scansion that the syllables fit the arsis and thesis of my footsteps, the rhythm of my praying, and the burden of my pilgrimage.
L R L R L R L R
Pi e Ie su Do mi ne
L R L R L R L R
Do na e is Re qui em
And thus it was I received my catalectic trochaic dimeter mantra. For all the remaining days of the meseta my mantra served me well.
As I walked the meseta praying my mantra, I could see heat devils where the hot earth caused wavy gradients in the air. Like the heated, rarefied air rose in the meseta, so too, old, rarefied memories of childhood rose up as specters as I prayed for the souls of my parents. These were all wonderful, silly things of childhood: ditties, poems, rhymes, riddles, and jokes. From strc prst skrz krk of Prague to Є УХ НИЕМ of the Volga. From Johny Verbeck and the Old Gray Mare to Ich Bin Der Doktor Eisenbart and Fuchs du hast die Gans gestohlen. From the Poor Old Slave who went to rest in Tennesee, the battle between Abdul Abulbul Amir and Ivan Skavinsky Skavar to the Alma Llanera and the plains of Venezuela. These are the memories of my childhood, an amalgam of Europe, East and West, and America, North and South, and they are to be found shelved in the crannies of my mind, where they were once placed by the lips of my parents, to be drawn again in the heat of the meseta. Oh mental residue of my parents, who told these things to me with sweet lips that I had kissed I know not how oft of, but now shall never kiss again!
I I I
Picaud’s “Manx-illa”
The town of Reliegos was small and unkempt. The stores were dirty and smelled foul. The café there was tolerable, and gave us a dinner composed of salad, chicken, and spaghetti. Only slightly better than the town, the refugio was marginal. Whatever comfort it could have given was robbed by the loud snoring of a Spanish pilgrim. The pilgrim was obese, and we had some warning of what awaited us in the evening aforehand, for we heard him snoring while he took his siesta. So that evening I decided to use the trick that James, the retired army captain, taught me. I bought some cigarettes, broke off the filters, and placed them in my ears. The filters muffled the sound to some degree and bought me some sleep, but they had a habit of falling out. Throughout the night, I’d lose the cigarettes, and I would hunt the pack and place a new one in my ear. By the morning I had run through the whole pack.
The only good thing that I recall at Reliegos was my meeting with Thomas, a young Polish pilgrim, who spoke very broken English. He had a T-shirt, and on the front it displayed the medal of St. Benedict, with its cryptic letters:
The back of his T-shirt held the key.
Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux!
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux!
Vade Retro Satana
Non Suade Mihi Vana
Sunt Mala Quae Libas
Ipse Venena Bibas
Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti
Holy cross be my light!
Dragon never be my lead!
Get thee behind me, Satan,
Do not suggest to me your vanities
Evil are the things you offer
Drink your poison yourself
Holy Cross of Father Benedict
k
[i] Thomas Merton, A Prayer, Robinson, Anthology, at 135-36.
[ii] Melczer, Pilgrim’s Guide, at 87.
[iii] King, II.116-17. “My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.”
____ Thomas Merton, A Prayer[i]
Leave Sahagún over the río Cea
Through the poplar forest of martyrs’ spears
On the Way: The Ash Trees at the River Cea
I abandoned my boots without ceremony in the albergue at Sahagún. I had awakened in the morning convinced that St. John wanted me to jettison these cruel implements of peregrine inquisition. I had planned variously to hang them, burn them, drown them; but in the end, I simply ignored them and so cruelly spurned them.
Bereft of boots and shod in sandals, I left Sahagún going west and started early. Randi and I traveled over the río Cea, the site of St. Facundus’s martyrdom, into a grove of ash trees. This place is also scene to one of the legendary battles between Charlemagne and Aigolandus. Picaud tells us: “Sahagún, prosperous in all sorts of goods: a meadow is there in which, as it is reported, the sparkling spears of victorious warriors, planted for the glory of God, were once blooming.”[ii] What does this mean? One can read about it in the Pseudo-Turpin, in Latin if one wishes, or in translation in various modern tongues, but one can also read it told in an old way, in an old manner, and in a free translation, waxing poetic:
Hereabouts the traveller should find shivering and trembling under the inquiet airs, that wood of lances that burgeoned in token of coming martyrdom, which Turpin tells of: “And also some of the Crysten men the day tofore the battayle, did do amend and array their harneys, and set their tents nigh a river named Ceye [Cea], and pight there their spears, even in the place whereas the bodies of S. Facond and S. Primitif rested, where after was made a church devoutly founded, and also a strong city by the moyen of the said Charles, and in the place where the spears were pight, our Lord showed a great miracle. For of them that should die there and be glorified martyrs of God and crowned in heaven, their spears on the morn were founded all green, flouresshed and leaved which was a precedent sign that they which should die should have the joy in heaven. Each man took his own and cut off the boughs and leaves with which the leaves were planted and under-rooted, whereof in a little while after grew a great-wood, which standeth there yet.”[iii]
Fabulous, all of it, unquestionably; but touching nevertheless. I was thankful for the wood of ash, the bridge of stone, the river of water, and the cool crisp air, for it was pleasing to the senses, and a comfort to the soul. How the wood got there I shall never know (except that it has no ties to Charlemagne’s army), but that was wonderful, I know.
I I I
Tunc astiterunt quidam ex Christia-nis, qui sero ante diem belli arma bellica sua stu-diosissime praepa-rantes, astas suas erectas infixerunt in terra ante castra in pratis, videlicet iuxta praefatum fluxium, quas summo mane scortici-bus et frondibus decoratas invene-runt, hi scilicet qui in acie proxima martirii palmam Dei fide accepturi erant
To Calzada del Coto
Take the Real Camino francés
On the Way: Sahagún to Calzada del Coto
Departing Sahagún and the memories of Charlemagne, we went by way of the carretera until we reached the hermitage of San Roque just before the town of Calzada del Coto. At Calzada del Coto, pilgrims are given an option, for the road forks into two. The pilgrim can go to Mansilla de las Mulas either by way of Calzadilla de los Hermanillos on the calzada de los Peregrinos or by way of Bercianos del Real Camino on the Real Camino Francés. We opted to go on the Real Camino Francés, for it appeared to be shorter and more direct.
Nothing but plain, plain, plain . . .
Past the arroyo del Coso
Bercianos del Real Camino
West into El Burgo Ranero
Cross arroyo Olmo and arroyo Las Fuentes
El Burgo Ranero
Past Arroyo Buensolana and Valdeas-neros and Utielga, and Naval, and Valde-arcos into Reliegos
On the Way: Calzada del Coto to El Burgo Ranero
From Calzada del Coto we walked to Bercianos del Real Camino, and from there to El Burgo Ranero. At Burgo Ranero we stopped at a café and had a tortilla and a drink.
Lector: ¡Basta!
At Burgo Ranero we stopped. A fat Spanish pilgrim came in and ordered a coffee with brandy in it, with the greater weight of brandy. “An odd drink,” I thought, “for a pilgrim in the morning,” for such a drink would have lulled me to sleep. Many such drinks over the years not doubt had given him quite a belly.
From Burgo Ranero we took the Camino Real Francés to the town of Reliegos, and as I walked into Reliegos I received a gift, a mantra. It was the key to this part of the pilgrimage.
I I I
On the Way: Mantra for the Meseta
The plains of the meseta are a crucible for the pilgrim. They are a burden, a cross, a test. Pilgrims devise all sorts of mechanisms to adjust to the solitary and tedious demands of the meseta. Some avoid it altogether. Those who brave it have to grapple with it.
I used a mantra (so to speak). But the mantra was not mine; it was given me. I think the woman whose body was in the church at Sahagún may have had a hand in it. I found my mantra, and I found it in the last two lines of the last verse of the Dies Irae by the medieval Franciscan Thomas of Celano. The source was impeccable in its orthodoxy, which makes it commendable to any pilgrim:
Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce, Deus
Pie Iesu Domine
Dona eis Requiem.
I took the last two lines of this most marvelous sequence, and I found through a walking scansion that the syllables fit the arsis and thesis of my footsteps, the rhythm of my praying, and the burden of my pilgrimage.
L R L R L R L R
Pi e Ie su Do mi ne
L R L R L R L R
Do na e is Re qui em
And thus it was I received my catalectic trochaic dimeter mantra. For all the remaining days of the meseta my mantra served me well.
As I walked the meseta praying my mantra, I could see heat devils where the hot earth caused wavy gradients in the air. Like the heated, rarefied air rose in the meseta, so too, old, rarefied memories of childhood rose up as specters as I prayed for the souls of my parents. These were all wonderful, silly things of childhood: ditties, poems, rhymes, riddles, and jokes. From strc prst skrz krk of Prague to Є УХ НИЕМ of the Volga. From Johny Verbeck and the Old Gray Mare to Ich Bin Der Doktor Eisenbart and Fuchs du hast die Gans gestohlen. From the Poor Old Slave who went to rest in Tennesee, the battle between Abdul Abulbul Amir and Ivan Skavinsky Skavar to the Alma Llanera and the plains of Venezuela. These are the memories of my childhood, an amalgam of Europe, East and West, and America, North and South, and they are to be found shelved in the crannies of my mind, where they were once placed by the lips of my parents, to be drawn again in the heat of the meseta. Oh mental residue of my parents, who told these things to me with sweet lips that I had kissed I know not how oft of, but now shall never kiss again!
I I I
Picaud’s “Manx-illa”
The town of Reliegos was small and unkempt. The stores were dirty and smelled foul. The café there was tolerable, and gave us a dinner composed of salad, chicken, and spaghetti. Only slightly better than the town, the refugio was marginal. Whatever comfort it could have given was robbed by the loud snoring of a Spanish pilgrim. The pilgrim was obese, and we had some warning of what awaited us in the evening aforehand, for we heard him snoring while he took his siesta. So that evening I decided to use the trick that James, the retired army captain, taught me. I bought some cigarettes, broke off the filters, and placed them in my ears. The filters muffled the sound to some degree and bought me some sleep, but they had a habit of falling out. Throughout the night, I’d lose the cigarettes, and I would hunt the pack and place a new one in my ear. By the morning I had run through the whole pack.
The only good thing that I recall at Reliegos was my meeting with Thomas, a young Polish pilgrim, who spoke very broken English. He had a T-shirt, and on the front it displayed the medal of St. Benedict, with its cryptic letters:
The back of his T-shirt held the key.
Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux!
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux!
Vade Retro Satana
Non Suade Mihi Vana
Sunt Mala Quae Libas
Ipse Venena Bibas
Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti
Holy cross be my light!
Dragon never be my lead!
Get thee behind me, Satan,
Do not suggest to me your vanities
Evil are the things you offer
Drink your poison yourself
Holy Cross of Father Benedict
k
[i] Thomas Merton, A Prayer, Robinson, Anthology, at 135-36.
[ii] Melczer, Pilgrim’s Guide, at 87.
[iii] King, II.116-17.
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