Similarities of Stories

Santa Domingo on the Camino Frances is where one of the most famous of the legends of the Camino is said to have happened. In the 14th century an 18-year old German boy was walking the Camino with his parents. When they reached Santo Domingo they stayed in the hostel where a girl, possibly the owner’s daughter or maybe just a servant girl who worked in the hostel or an inn (different versions of the story give her different positions), made advances toward him which he spurned. Angered by this the girl decided to get her own back and so she hid a silver cup in the boy’s bag before he left the hostel and then reported it missing.

The boy and his parents were stopped and searched and the cup found in the boy’s pocession. The boy protested his innocence but was hung for the crime as his parents watched. They then carry on to Santiago (with great sadness you imagine) to continue with their pilgrimage.

        On their return they passed by the gallows and saw their son still hanging there but he was alive and not dead so they ran to tell the local magistrate who had just settled down to eat. The magistrate laughed at their story and said, “Your son is as alive as this rooster and chicken that I was eating before you came!” At which the two birds jumped up and started to crow happily.

        The boy was cut down and presumably went home with his parents (although he could have continued on to Santiago to continue with his Pilgrimage). The crow and chicken went on display in the Cathedral and a pair can still be seen to this day in a small area to one side of the Cathedral (they are the only animals allowed to be kept in a Cathedral despite the efforts of many Bishops to have them removed permission was granted and remains thanks to successive Popes). You have to hope that the girl never tried the same trick again.

Interestingly this is very similar to the story of the famous Portugal Rooster which has the story happen in Barcelos at a rich landowner’s banquet where a piece of silverware is stolen and one of the guests was accused of the robbery which he denied. He was offered a chance to show his innocence by the magistrate and then man pointed to a Rooster in a basket on the dining table and said, ‘If I am innocent this cock will crow,’ at which the Rooster jumped up and crowed loudly and then man was set free.

Another version of the story in Portugal has a great crime being committed in the town of Barcelos for which no culprit could be found. One day a man from Galicia came to the town on his way to visit the nearby town to worship its Patron Saint Tiago and suspicion fell on him so that he would be hung. He asked, as his last request, to see the Judge who had condemned him and was asked to prove his innocence. Seeing a Rooster in a bowl ready to be eaten he prayed to God that it would crow and prove his innocence and since then the rooster has been a symbol of honesty. Barcelos is a city that lies on the Camino Portuguese which may explain some of the similarities in the stories or the same miracle could have happened twice either way the Rooster is now an unofficial symbol of Portugal.

It's interesting that two such similar stories occur along the Caminos, maybe it has to do with so many people walking and passing the story along or maybe a similar miracle did occur twice, I don't know but maybe this reflects what Pilgrims themselves have happen - are any of our stories all that different? We all feel called to walk the Camino (or ride it) for some reason or another and we all go along battling aches and pains, meeting people, making friends, carrying all that we can to reach our goal of Santiago, there are variations of course in experience, how much we are injured, who we meet, how fast we walk and so forth but as you walk you know that everyone has the same goal and is living the same sort of life and that is a wonderful thing to experience: the similarities of stories, to be bound together in purpose, to be able to look at your fellows and see not differences but similarities, to feel the normal barriers that we all put up in our lives disappear as country of origin, age and race simply do not seem to matter, only that you are a fellow Pilgrim, a fellow human being, someone to care for and help as you can.

If only we could continue seeing the similarities among us all when we came home, after all as a wise man (The Doctor himself no less) once said: 'We're all stories in the end,' and a very similar tale all of our lives can be, we just have to be willing to recognize that - what a wonderful souvenir from the Camino that would be!