Magical stories in San Andresiño de Lonxe

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
04 February 2024 Sunday 16:07
7 Reads
Magical stories in San Andresiño de Lonxe

* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia

From Lonxe (from afar)… or San Andrés do cabo do mundo… A sanctuary in the Galician remoteness near Cape Ortegal, the one that marks the border between the Atlantic and the Cantabrian Sea or perhaps unites them…

From all corners of Galicia and even beyond, pilgrims come, convinced that whoever is not alive will go dead, turned into a reptile.

Frogs, snakes and lizards are respected on the road for being souls in pain, like those accompanied by a family member who puts a plate on the table at the inns and asks: "José, do you like soup?" And he responds: "It burns a lot... I'll tell you when it cools down..."

It is the way to prevent them - those who were not in life - from crawling now to reach the Saint. He arrived in a stone boat and before those cliffs, the highest in continental Europe, he capsized and remains on the coast with his keel in the sun, as seen in this photograph in La Vanguardia's Readers' Photos.

There, in those solitudes, is Andrés, brother of Santiago, and he will remain forever and ever accompanied by the fog that rises from the sea, by the wild horses and the cows in freedom.

And, above all, of the pilgrims who, in the shrines along the way, leave stones of a size proportional to their sins and wax votive offerings, in the chapel, according to their ailments, legs, hands, heads... and drink from the three spouts of the source to make three wishes.

All this... there, at the end of the world, in San Andrés de Teixido, near Cedeira (A Coruña), the maps say...