• Galicians who parade in coffins (and are not dead)

Just a few weeks ago, while almost the entire Peninsula was suffocated suffocated by a heat wave, from Galicia we watched the panorama with some perplexity, from our comfortable 21ºC and under a fine drizzle. And is that although it is normal for everyone to look for the most idyllic place that can be allowed to spend the holidays, on this side of the Curtain of Grelos we do not quite understand that almost compulsive need that many vacationers have to sweat, suffer heat and singe under the sun. And it is not that in the North we do not also have beautiful beaches and summer days, which abounds with this and increasingly, with climate change.

However here we know that there is another way to spend the summer, enjoying a trip between some rain, forests, green meadows and above all, very, very strange stories . Because Galicia is a place so full of magic that it is worth visiting one of these different sites. And to those places full of stories between magic and tradition I want to invite you from these pages for the next few days.

To begin, I want you to accompany me to discover a story that seems taken from a novel by Dan Brown or Javier Sierra and worthy of being the first stage of our summer route: We will go to Cambre , a small town in Coruña that treasures in a tiny church nothing less than one of the waters of Cana. Don't you know what a hydria is? Don't worry, it's normal, because you probably haven't had one in your life. Because a hydria is an ancient stone vessel for liquids that have not been in common use for centuries. This one in particular is, according to tradition, the one that Jesus Christ used in the biblical account and that was taken to Cambre by the Templars with a determined and unknown purpose . Almost nothing.

Cambre is not a locality that usually appears in the lists of most visited sites. And yet, in the church of Santa Maria de Cambre , a flirtatious Romanesque jewel of the twelfth century, there is a treasure of those that if it were in the United Kingdom or in an American museum it would attract thousands of visitors. If you approach there and find the temple open, take a look, going to your left. There is a baptismal font approximately one meter high made of limestone - nothing to do with the area's own granite - with the jagged edges, the broken handles and covered with floral motifs, spirals and religious representations.

Pérez de Traba did not go to the Holy Land once, but twice, something that even by the pious standards of the time was to go back

I could go through one of the thousands of similar batteries scattered throughout Spain if it weren't for its strange history. According to tradition, it is one of the seven hydrias of Cana, the great stone vessels in which, according to the New Testament , Jesus used his miraculous divine force to turn water into wine. So far it could simply be one of many folk traditions without any historical basis. But there are things that don't fit. Its composition, the fact that the artistic style of its representations has nothing to do with the typical of other contemporary works of the Romanesque the area and that is directly connected with the order of the Temple make us at least consider that this stone vessel hides A much more complex story behind.

Apparently, it all starts with a 12th-century local nobleman, named Fernando Pérez de Traba . Like many gentlemen of his time he felt the obligation to participate in the crusades and that is why he traveled to the Holy Land to fight. Imagine for a moment how difficult it was to travel nine hundred years ago from the heart of rural Galician to the arid landscapes that surround Jerusalem. If Pérez de Traba wanted to ensure the salvation of his soul, they will agree with me on what effort he put into it.

But here the story begins to get complicated, because Pérez de Traba did not go to the Holy Land only once, but twice, something that even by the pious standards of the time was to go around. And the objective of this second trip was, among other things, the Cana hydria.

When he returned from this second trip he brought the heavy water, a task that should have cost a fortune in effort, time and sweat. In case this was not enough, Fernando Pérez de Traba was a member of the Order of the Knights Templar and precisely a few kilometers from where the hydria is located is Santa María del Temple, another church in the area that, as the name implies, belonged to the members of this chivalrous order.

The presence of the Templars in this area may be related to the English Way, the route that pilgrims had to take to Santiago de Compostela that came from the British Isles and northern Europe by sea to the port of A Coruña.

It is easy to imagine the amazement of these bumpy travelers when they arrived in Cambre, about to finish their odyssey and suddenly they were in a small medieval town with an artifact that would have been used by Jesus Christ himself. Whether it's a real object, or one of the best and earliest marketing ideas in history, they won't deny me that the feeling had to be overwhelming.

Because, if not, why did a group of 12th-century Templar knights decided to embark on a long and very dangerous journey from the Holy Land to Cambre loaded with an artifact of several hundred kilos in weight? What was the reason to leave it in that church and not in the Temple itself, located just two kilometers away? And, above all, is it really a biblical object or just any antiquity, looted from some Middle Eastern temple?

Popular pride

Be that as it may, the neighbors of Cambre immediately accepted that this receptacle was something that had been part of Jesus' life and decided to defend it with nails and teeth from that moment. When the order of the Temple was dissolved and its goods were distributed among the various crowns and religious orders of the time, the hydria was hidden at first, until the dust caused by the dissolution of the most powerful religious order that existed until the moment he was posing. From there it was moved to its current location, from which it has seen the centuries go by slowly, but not without incident. Thus, for example, in 1675, from the Archbishopric of Santiago they claimed that the hydria be taken to the Compostela city to incorporate it into the treasures of the cathedral.

When those in charge of the transfer arrived in Cambre they found a popular uprising to prevent the religious device , which quickly degenerated into an open mutiny. It was necessary that the military forces of the area intervened to placate the tumults and finally, with quite good criteria - sentiment , that we tell you here - it was decided that the hydria would not move from there and that the bloodshed was not worth it .

The neighborhood rage against the transfer was not only due to a bitter defense of the cultural heritage of his small town, but went a little further. And it is that this heavy stone vessel has magical powers, or at least the neighbors were convinced . And that is precisely why it is so dusty. Yes, just as they hear it.

From the dust obtained by scratching the watermelon you will get a powerful healing ointment that will protect you from virtually any disease

Apparently, the thing works as follows: When ringing nine bells of the church you must approach the hydria and with a metallic object you have to scrape part of the surface, until accumulating some dust. Then, mix this powder with oil and some herbs and you will get a powerful healing ointment that will protect you from virtually any disease. Based on this popular belief, for centuries the vessel was losing parts and that is why today, if you approach Cambre, you will find it deeply damaged. And if it happens to you to repeat the procedure of centuries ago, let me advise against it.

Surely I ended up detained for a crime against the estate, if the pastor does not give him a few colleges before, and rightly so. And besides, I have not explained to them what the herbs are, so there is no way that the balm will work. And not to mention that surely a neighbor of Cambre would be angry with you for deteriorating one of the most precious - and unknown - local treasures.

So you see: Templar, magic, a historical artifact from the time of Jesus Christ that was probably used by him and all this in a small town in La Coruña. Not bad to start the trip, right? Then regain strength in any of the restaurants in the area - in Galicia, as in almost all of the north, we take things from the table very seriously and surely do not leave disappointed - before we start towards our next destination: A small town in the province of Pontevedra, in which they venerate a saint from whom they have no idea of ​​their identity. Because they don't know, they don't even know if it's holy or holy. And if that wasn't enough ... They've got him locked in a cage on top of a mountain! But that will be in the next stage of our summer trip through the Magical Galicia.

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