In Trasmoz, witchcraft is a year-round thing. As the only technically cursed and excommunicated town in Spain, in its quiet streets at the foot of Moncayo it is common to see brooms hanging from the railings or signs announcing that the witch of the year lives in this or that house. But in these days marked by Halloween, the town highlights its status as non grata in the Kingdom of Heaven, to which it owes its fame and the manna of tourism curious about the hidden and magical that it attracts.
“We are the blessed and damned,” says Lola Ruiz, unofficial spokesperson for the 40 residents who reside here in winter. According to what he says, the big day took place last Saturday with the celebration of the 'La Luz de las Ánimas' festival, which combines the pious - procession to the cemetery included - with the pagan: terrifying market, pumpkins with candles, passage of terror or popular queimada with its own spell. “About 6,000 people came, it was a great experience,” she says.
To understand the history of the place you have to go back to the Middle Ages. At that time, Trasmoz was the only town in the area that escaped the direct control of the neighboring Monasterio de Veruela, including the payment of taxes, a source of resentment and disagreements. In 1255, the conflict between the two escalated due to the fight for firewood from a nearby mountain where everyone came to supply themselves. The abbot at the time, Andrés de Tudela, got tired of people not respecting his authority and made the drastic decision to excommunicate the people.
Three centuries later, water was the new source of confrontation. The lord of Trasmoz in 1511, Pedro Manuel Ximénez de Urrea, took up arms against the abbot of the monastery because the clerics had diverted a natural channel that prevented the arrival of water to the town. King Ferdinand II of Aragon intervened to make peace in favor of the lord of Trasmoz, a decision that did not please the abbot, who ended up cursing the people.
To make it effective with greater solemnity, the supposed chronicles of the time include a macabre staging in the middle of the night. After covering the crucifix on the altar with a black veil, the abbot recited Psalm 108 of the Bible in which God curses his enemies - “O God of my praise, do not be silent. Mouths of impious and traitors are open against me ”-, while he accompanies his songs with forceful bell ringing. Trasmoz she became cursed with nocturnality and treachery.
Since then, the legend has marked the town with gloomy letters. Witches, covens, necromancy... All activities unhealthy for the human soul were said to take place within the boundaries of this village that was uncomfortable for the habited neighbors who lived a few kilometers away.
But what scares some, attracts others. Among those who curiously surrendered to its charms are figures such as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. In 1963, the Sevillian poet and writer moved for a time to the Monastery of Veruela to breathe fresh air that would heal his tuberculosis. That stay was inspiring and helped him to design his epistolary work Desde mi cell, published in the newspaper El Contemporáneo throughout 1864.
In three of those letters he gave an account of some legends of the area, such as the one he dedicated to the famous construction of the Trasmoz castle in a single night - at that time, the fortress was a ruin that guarded the town from the top of the hill - or another in which he narrated the death of Aunt Casca, a witch from Trasmoz who was thrown to death from a ravine by her neighbors. “We are the town to which he dedicates the most lines, Bécquer is our best emissary,” Ruiz rejoices.
Despite the excommunication and subsequent curse, the residents of Trasmoz have continued to carry out their religious practices without, as far as we know, clashing with the Almighty or the ecclesiastical hierarchy. “Masses or weddings are celebrated as usual, there is no conflict,” emphasizes the neighbor. Even so, technically the sentence remains firm, since only the Pope of Rome has the power to revoke those sentences, something he has not yet done.
“We are still cursed, but we don't care, we take advantage of it so that the town and its attractions are known,” says Ruiz, who cites the witchcraft and magical plants fair that is held here every summer or the Museum of Witchcraft, where they pass about 10,000 people a year.
