La Fuente, Cantabria: learning History in Liébana

Cantabria, Asturias and Palencia are fortunate to share neighborhood and prominence with this untamed natural frontier, which are the world-known Picos de Europa.

The power and the magnetism, which I would say supernatural, emanating from those impressive mountains, contrasts remarkably with the beauty of valleys where, like stars, settle a multitude of small villages, usually isolated in the harsh winters when they visit them. 'wind of the devil', the Acharon, but happily saturated with enthusiastic tourists in the hot summers.

Liébana is accessed from different places, but generally, the most frequented and most dangerous route, also, is the one that runs from the Asturian town of Potes, along a really winding and difficult road, which ascends through the impressive gorge of La Hermida , gratifies, notwithstanding the traveler, with the vision of spectacular landscapes, warning him that, as he ascends, he will find himself closer and closer to a truly splendid and spectacular region: La Liébana.

We will provisionally leave the exploration of this privileged area and arriving at the town of La Hermida, we will voluntarily tempt the curiosity and we will take a detour, which points us towards the small village of La Fuente and its Romanesque church of the XII-XIII centuries.

Convenient will also be to forget about time and think, above all, about the relativity of something as uncertain as distances on the mountain, since surely, those five kilometers that the poster warned us, will seem, in reality, infinitely plus.

Let's look, in compensation, at the beauty of the valleys, mountains and depressions offered by this county road that runs parallel to the Hermida gorge and also in the picturesqueness of the small villages that we leave behind and once we reach our destination, let's stop in front of the church and be polite to the grandfather who is sitting in the shade of his main door, facing west.

In front of his question: 'if you bother for the photo, I take off', continue being educated and say no, since after all it is us who have come to disturb your peace and it would be very unfair, even unforgivable, to disturb his honorable recollection.

Believe it or not, this respectful attitude, often get brilliant results and after observing our interest in the medieval imagery displayed by the stonemasons, especially on the capitals of the entrance portico, it will be the same grandfather who becomes a cicerone and fact, in an inestimable source of information, telling us at first hand, some interesting details of the history of the church in question. Later, with them and with our own impressions, we will have time to make any kind of hypothesis, cabals and suggestions.

On the other hand, the invocation of the church is still interesting: de Santa Juliana. Santa Juliana is a strange saint, which possibly conceals, under her Christianized appearance, an earlier deity, of eminently chthonic character and probably set in the ancient agricultural cults so characteristic of the area. In fact, it seems to be a very popular figure in Cantabria, as evidenced by the fact that the important collegiate church of Santillana del Mar is also under its patronage, in whose church its supposed sepulcher is located. Generally, it is represented by pulling on the hair of the devil, as you can see, for example, in an interesting sculptural representation that is located in the Romanesque church of Santa María de Siones, in the Merindades of Burgos, an area where it could very well be exported, following the avatars pilgrims of the Camino de Santiago.

Surely we draw in conclusion, judging by the artistic differences that are seen in the execution of the sculptures, the presence and work of different stonemasons, perhaps teacher and apprentice. By then, the grandfather, whose name we will not remember or simply has not been made known to us, has already told us that this church, like many others in the area, was materially demolished and burned during the avatars of the dreadful Civil War. that ravaged Spain, in that pathetic period between 1936 and 1939.

Then, perhaps observing our commiserative gesture and knowing that he is the recipient of all our attention, he will continue explaining that for a long time, the ship was a repository of farm implements and cattle manger, despite the fact that those same stars guide the pilgrim towards their destination. Compostela, they will look at it through the improvised mirrors produced in the ramshackle and crumbling roof.

A ship and a roof, that even with leaks and the free passage in winter to the rigors of the wind of the devil - the acharon, as we have already hinted before - badly that well, they protected from the total weather the different families of gypsy ethnicity that they settled down to his side, while cabals were made about the place where his nomadic compass would take them in the future. And more or less happened, until in some illuminated moment of the nineties of the last century, the relevant authorities must have realized the relative importance of what they were about to lose irremissibly and proceeded to scratch their pockets, lashing out a pious and timely restoration.

In short, a story that you will have heard in the heart of La Liébana, but that, back again along the same path that has led you there, will make you think that you could have heard it perfectly equal, without changing a comma, in any another part of this, our old Iberia, the one where Hercules stole the bulls from Geryon and did the same with the golden apples of the garden of the Hespérides.

[Hospital de la Fuenfría, Cercedilla, Madrid, Sunday, August 5, 2018]

WARNING: Both the text and the photographs are my exclusive intellectual property.

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