Yellow arrows and the Shell symbol

Yellow Arrows and Scallop Shell symbol

The yellow arrows and the scallop shell vie with each other for the honour of most recognisable symbol of the Camino and I think every perigrino’s heart has lightened on seeing them on those rare occasions when we’ve gone off the beaten track.  While the shell has a long association with the Camino, the yellow arrow is a modern innovation.  It was the brainchild of Don Elias Valiña Sampedro in the 1970s, a priest now buried at one of the oldest churches on the Camino, Santa María la Real, at O’Cebreiro (Galicia).  Don Elias was a historian as well as a priest and instrumental in reviving the Camino, through the judicious application of yellow paint on walls, rocks, trees and roads.  A story goes that at one time he was in eastern Navarre with his bucket and brush when his suspicious behaviour drew the attention of the Guardia Civil (one of Spain’s police forces).  What was he doing so near the border they asked?  To which he replied magnificently, “Preparing a great invasion from France!”[1]

The shell as a symbol dates back to the middle ages (see my History of the Camino), and the modern abstract version has a stellar quality, as befits something guiding the way to Compostela (‘Field of the Star’).  I’ve heard it said that the direction of the rays of the shell points toward Compostela but that some of Spain’s autonomous regions orientate the symbol the other way around, with all the rays converging in the direction of the Compostela.  To be honest, in my experience there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason and the arrows are a safer bet, but as long as you’re heading roughly west (sun to your left) you’re ok.  However, the star-like quality of the shell symbol has another significance, one that complements the colour scheme and speaks to the future as much as the past.

It is no coincidence that the colour scheme of the shell symbol — yellow markings on a blue background — matches the yellow stars on a blue background of the European Union flag. By the mid-1970s dictatorships like that of Franco in Spain or the Regime of the Colonels in Greece were increasingly anachronistic and incompatible with evolving EU ideals, and after Franco’s death in 1975 and the subsequent transition to democracy, post-Franco Spain increasingly sought to locate itself within a modern Europe.  The Camino became a means of promoting Spain’s place in Europe — after all the road to Compostela had once been one of Europe’s most travelled highways and a magnet for people from all over northern Europe.  In 1986 Spain joined the EU (then EEC), and the following year the Camino was designated the first Cultural Route of the Council of Europe, in recognition that:

For centuries, pilgrims could discover new traditions, languages and ways of life and return home with a rich cultural background that was rare at a time when long-distance travel exposed the traveller to considerable danger. Thus the Santiago Routes serve both as a symbol, reflecting ever one thousand years of European history, and as a model of cultural co-operation for Europe as a whole.[2]

If you’re from the UK and you voted for Brexit, you might want to think twice about getting that scallop shell tattoo!

[1] Anxo Saco, ‘Who was Elías Valiña? Follow the yellow arrow!’, https://caminotravelcenter.com/who-was-elias-valina-follow-the-yellow-arrow

[2] Council of Europe, ‘Santiago de Compostela Pilgrim Routes’, https://www.coe.int/en/web/cultural-routes/the-santiago-de-compostela-pilgrim-routes

The oldest guide to the Camino

Santiago, from the Codex Calixtinus, available at Wikimedia Commons

Keeping donkeys for oral sex does not seem like the kind of thing you would normally associate with a travel guide, especially one dedicated to a pilgrimage, but sure enough there it is in the oldest guide book to the Camino, the twelfth-century Pilgrim’s Guide in the Codex Calixtinus:

In some places, like Vizcaya and Alava, when they get warmed up, the men and women show off their private parts to each other. The Navarrese also have sex with their farm animals. And it’s said that they put a lock on the backsides of their mules and horses so that nobody except themselves can have at them. Moreover, they kiss lasciviously the vaginas of women and of mules.[1]

In condemning the loose morals of the people he encountered, the author reserved particular scorn for the Basques and Navarrese, and yet the Pilgrim’s Guide now has an important place in Basque scholarship, as it contains some of the earliest examples of the Basque language committed to writing.

The Pilgrim’s Guide is the fifth of the five sections in the Codex Calixtinus (Latin for “Callixtus’ Book”), which forms a kind of anthology on the cult of St James/Santiago, including accounts of miracles, legends and liturgies.  Its alleged author was Pope Callixtus II (died 1124), who is known for (among other things) writing the papal bull Sicut Judaeis (a letter of universal protection for Jews) and restoring the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, in Rome (which featured in the Audrey Hepburn-Gregory Peck film Roman Holiday).  It’s not entirely clear why Callixtus should be associated with the Codex, but he had good connections with the lands of the Camino, as his brother Raymond of Burgundy married Urraca, heiress and future queen of León, and Raymond himself ruled Galicia under his father-in-law, in the 1090s.

The manuscript is now kept by the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and many of you who have completed your Camino may be familiar with it without even knowing — on your Compostela (certificate of completion) is an image of Santiago, hand raised in benediction, taken directly from the Codex Calixtinus.  If that piques your interest you can buy some nice stationary featuring it in the cathedral shop, order a limited-edition facsimile – a steal at a mere €1900 online[2] – or just steal the real thing like a disgruntled cathedral employee did in 2011![3]

[1] Denis Murphy’s very readable translation of the Pilgrim’s Guide (perhaps the most accessible translation in English on the internet), can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/caminodesantiagoproject.  The quotation is take from ‘Chapter VII. The lands and peoples along the Camino de Santiago’: https://sites.google.com/site/caminodesantiagoproject/chapter-vii

[2] https://codexcalixtinus.es/

[3] ‘Cathedral thief gets 10 years for stealing 12th-century manuscript’, El País (18 Feb 2015): https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/18/inenglish/1424275570_591038.html

Portmagee, Co. Kerry: the origins of an Atlantic smuggling village

My latest book – a history of the village of Portmagee, Co. Kerry from the Bronze Age to modern times – is now available to buy from Four Courts Press.

For more on my other writings, click Fiction, History Books or Academic in the toolbar above – whichever type takes your fancy!

Tigernán Ua Ruairc and a twelfth-century royal grant in the Book of Kells

Published in the Maynooth Studies in Local History series and available here from Four Courts Press

The world-famous Book of Kells originally contained several land transactions records that shed light on the ecclesiastical and secular politics of eleventh- and twelfth-century Ireland. This study examines one by Tigernán Ua Ruairc, the famous king of Bréifne who is popularly remembered in connection with the English invasion.