Myths and memories run deep in lesser known reaches of Spain

From the stormy Basque coast, to the cloud-capped peaks of Asturias, to the sun-baked plains and wind-sculpted rocks of the Iberian interior, a multitude of cultures have conjured legends from the Spanish landscape upon which they built their own wonders.

Words by Stephen Phelan

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Villages in the clouds

The limestone massifs of the Picos de Europa mountain range are very thinly populated, and tiny farming villages are scattered between peaks and pastures. Hiking route over eastern hills and valleys, you’ll come to Sotres, the highest village in Asturias and a low-key eco-tourist hub where summer visitors now outnumber the hundred or so residents. Caves around Sotres are used to mature Cabrales, a renowned blue cheese made with a blend of milk from cows, sheep, and goats from these high-altitude mountain pastures. According to regional legend, a dragon-like winged serpent called the cuélebre lies coiled in those same caves, emerging now and then to feed on cattle―and sometimes villagers.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

The shepherd and the cuelébre

Asturian farming practices date back thousands of years. Upper mountain slopes can be so inaccessible that agriculture is mostly the province of smallholder livestock herders who use those high pastures as summer grazing land, then move their animals down to lower meadows before the winter snows. It’s a hard life, and while traditional husbandry has been steadily declining over recent decades, ancestral myths tend to linger. Retired shepherd Jose Mier, known to friends as Pepe, is 93 years old, and claims to have seen a cuelébre, the region’s fabled mountain-dwelling, dragon-like winged serpent, when he was only 13.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Cheesemaking in ancient caves

No other region in Spain (or Europe) produces as many varieties of cheese as Asturias, with a robust range of flavours and textures arising from distinct and ancient recipes, as well as subtle environmental differences between one valley and the next. Cabrales is surely the best known of these regional cheeses, but even this is made using a variety of formulas and techniques with different combinations of sheep’s, cow’s, and goat’s milk. All of that milk, however, must come from herds raised within a small, official zone of production in the Picos de Europa mountains, and every cheese is duly matured and fermented in one of the region’s caves by artisan cheesemakers like Pablo Asiegu (pictured here).

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Islet of priests and pirates

The churning waves of the Bay of Biscay carve away at the leading edge of Basque country, shaping the rock into spectacular arches, tunnels, and craggy islets. Just offshore, though connected to the mainland by a man-made stone bridge, San Juan Gaztelugatxe lies within a protected biotope that includes neighbouring Aketx. Best known for the medieval hilltop hermitage that was once attacked and sacked by Sir Frances Drake, the coves below have been ill-used by pirates and smugglers over the centuries. The islet’s stormy setting has proved especially fertile for folk tales, and the hit television series Game of Thrones took full advantage of that fantastical atmosphere by using San Juan Gaztelugatxe as a filming location.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Where fishermen pray for protection

Ancient pagan myths merge with early Christian legends where landscape blurs into seascape along the Basque coast. Here an ancient stone bridge connects the ethereal island of San Juan Gaztelugatxe to the mainland. Legend has it that Saint John the Baptist visited the island, leaving his footprint in the rock en route to a hilltop site now occupied by a reconstruction of the original 9th-century hermitage built in his honour. After climbing the 241 stone steps, tradition demands that you ring the chapel bell three times for good luck―which is considered especially important for the seafarers of nearby ports like Bermeo.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Home of the world’s greatest sailors

Over thousands of years of coastal settlement along the Bay of Biscay, the Basque people became master mariners and shipbuilders, ranging ever farther outward on ever-more sophisticated boats. Several Basques were aboard the Magellan voyage that first circumnavigated the globe, and sailors from this region were some of the earliest Europeans to fish off the North American coast. Today the shipyard-museum of Albaola in Pasia celebrates and upholds that nautical heritage: an in-house team of carpenters builds and restores vessels using ancient techniques.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Where wetlands turn to waves

The Oka River flows out to the Cantabrian Sea through an estuary flanked by fertile meadows, oak groves, pine forest, and salt marshes. The latter in particular make for a spectacular wildlife habitat that now forms the core of the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. Restoration of the wetlands has attracted an abundance of migratory birds, while the rivermouth at Mundaka creates a legendary sandbar break that draws surfers from across Spain, Europe, and beyond. This is also lamiak country, where those mermaid-like creatures of Basque legend were once said to abound.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Still tilting at windmills

Across the plains of La Mancha, clusters of white-painted windmills spin against the horizon. These enduring icons of the Spanish landscape were imprinted on the mind’s eye by Miguel de Cervantes in his great 17th-century novel, Don Quixote, in which the titular “knight” confuses those structures for marauding giants and charges them with his lance. The town of Campo de Criptana is generally believed to be the real-life inspiration for that chapter, and 10 surviving windmills there have been adapted into various museums and visitor centres, some with their original machinery and blades restored to working order.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Toledo: The city of three cultures

Standing high on a hill over the River Tagus and the flatlands of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo was capital of Spain under the Visigoths and later a mighty walled city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians coexisted in relative harmony during part of the Middle Ages. Each culture left its own lasting mark on the architecture, and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of today is a wonder of mixed monumental heritage, where the skyline rises from half-buried ruins to soaring minarets and bell towers. That ethno-religious mix also gives the city and surrounding region a particular richness in a mythology informed by ancient tales of giants and sorcerers.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Toledo synagogue’s heavenly design

Toledo was at one time an outpost of Christian forces battling to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula from the Moorish dynasties that had held much of it for more than half a millennium. After they succeeded, the city again became Spain’s presiding Catholic seat of power under King Carlos V, and some of its grandest mosques were converted to churches while retaining many of their most intricate Islamic design features, including geometric patterning, glazed ceramics, and ornamental stucco work. This Mudéjar hybrid architecture lends modern Toledo much of its beauty and mystery.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

Dolomite giants

The city of Cuenca is a geological marvel in itself: The Moorish-built Old Town seems to hang in the air above a plunging river gorge. Nearby is Ciudad Encantada (Enchanted City), an entirely earthly yet otherworldly landscape of strange dolomite rock forms shaped by erosion into blooms, stalks, and ripples that seem to resemble alien mushrooms, calcified weather systems, and even crouching giants―all of which have added texture and dimension to the folk tales of the Júcar River valley.  
 
Find more Spanish legends here.

Photograph by Matthieu Paley

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