Pauline Nevins

I’m daydreaming as I lounge across the backseat of the luxury motorcoach on the ride from Burgos to Ciruena, a tiny village in Spain’s Rioja District. The movie The Way, I remember, was the first I heard of the Camino de Santiago – the 500-mile Christian pilgrimage. Martin Sheen starred as a father who follows in the footsteps of his son who died hiking the Camino – not exactly a ringing endorsement. But the movie motivated lots of others to make the trek.

I’d hear the Camino name again a few years later when my husband Jim and I were on a pilgrimage of our own to find the birthplace of Jim’s late grandfather, born in the last house before Spain. When travelling in the Basque Region between France and Spain, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant. We asked for help with the menu from a hiking couple at the next picnic table. They were German (one may have been wearing lederhosen) and didn’t speak French but spoke English. They were walking the trail to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain – the pilgrims’ destination. I was impressed. These people were not young – but much younger than I am now!

After an hour on the coach to Ciruena, I was ready for the four-mile hike to Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The town’s name honors its founder, Dominic de la Calzada, a hermit who became a priest and then a saint. He’s revered for having devoted his life to creating a path for early pilgrims by building roads and bridges, and for erecting a church that eventually became the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

“You’ll enjoy the legend surrounding the Cathedral of Santo Domingo,” said my Auburn hiking friend who encouraged me to take the trip. He chuckled, then told me a story which went something like this:

A young man and his German family, traveling pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago in the 14th century, stopped in Santa Domingo del Calzada for the night. The innkeeper’s daughter fancied the young man, but he rejected her advances. To spite him, she hid a silver chalice in his knapsack. She then accused him of theft and the authorities sentenced him to be hanged.

His parents continued their pilgrimage (?) but then returned to Santo Domingo de la Calzada to bid a last farewell to their son. To their surprise, he was alive, still hanging from the noose – a miracle he attributed to Saint Dominic. The parents hurried to the authorities to have him released. The sheriff of Santo Domingo was skeptical and said their son was as alive as the roasted cockerel and hen he was about to eat that very moment. As soon as he finished speaking, the chickens on the plate stood up, their white feathers returned, and they began to cluck and crow.

My Auburn friend reported they keep a rooster and hen, purportedly descendants of the miracle chickens, in an ornate coop in the cathedral choir loft. I couldn’t wait to see them. The hike was an easy one, and I arrived in the city eager to visit the cathedral. But mass was being held, and we could not enter. I was flabbergasted. It was the story of the chickens that enticed me to make the trip!

This letdown may have contributed to my mood the next day as I slogged the eight miles uphill to the medieval Monastery of San Juan de Ortega. This was the most grueling hike of the trip. At one point, my heart thumped so loudly I was afraid my son, who stayed two steps behind me on every walk, could hear it. As I puffed and panted my way to the lunch stop at the top of a hill, the rest of the group, seated on a low rock wall, stood and applauded. I turned to face my son and quietly hissed, “Why are they clapping? Some of them are only a couple of years younger than me.”

“Mother, they’re supporting you,” he gently chastised. Which, of course, they were. I offered a grateful curtsey when I reached the top.