[Gocamino] [saintjames] Re: Fwd:? A Traveler's Highway to Heaven

Thu Dec 6 08:30:37 PST 2007

While Don Quijote was a fictional character, of course, ?Cervantes,?replicated the?modes ?of his times in his writings;?the use of the shell as a travel convenience? is frequently? mentioned in? historical writings;??anyone visiting the monasteries and convents in the Camino? will find many references to such uses in their libraries. In?recounting?ancient pilgrimages by the monks or nuns who guide visitors to their monasteries or convents?the erstwhile utilitarian uses of the shell will surely be mentioned.???

Huh? Don Quixote was a fictional character! Walter Starkie was not! He
was Professor of Spanish at Trinity College in Dublin. As a translater of
Spanish literature, he published his own unabridged translation of
Cervantes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervantes>'s
*Don Quixote <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote>* in
1957<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957> in
hardcover <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcover>for Macmillan
Publishers<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macmillan_Publishers>,
and seven years later, published an abridged version in
paperback<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperback>for New
American Library <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_American_Library>.
(Wiki).
His book, Road to Santiago is a classic and one of the few that recounts
pilgrimage to Santiago in the early 1950's. If Walter Starkie says he
collected a scallop shell, then he collected a scallop shell! Too late to
verify his information - he passed away in 1976.
Sil

On 06/12/2007, blaroli at aol.com <blaroli at aol.com> wrote:
>
> The Pilgrims Office in Santiago has never, ever, given any shells to
> pilgrims. And, where is the "Confraternity of St James office in
> Santiago"?. Do you mean the French Confraternity? They do have an office
> there.
>
> The shells were used by ancient pilgrims, of all ilks (as anyone who has
> read Don Quijote will know), as a travel tool useful to scoop water from
> rivers, or as a vessel-spoon to drink water, wine or soup, or even to scrape
> their bodies when taking a bath. The shell became associated with the Camino
> when the lore grew that the decapitated body of Saint James had been
> brought to Galicia, on a boat made of stone, and that a young man riding
> to his wedding who had irresistibly jumped into the water to meet the boat
> emerged completely covered in seashells.
>
> (I am sending an etching of such happening to the techno-wizardsw here to
> post for those who may want to see it.
>
> Hugs!
>
> Rosina
>
>
>
>
> ps.com
> Sent: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 2:04 am
> Subject: Re: [Gocamino] Fwd:? A Traveler's Highway to Heaven
>
>
>
> In the middleages - and even as recently as the 1950's - the pilgrim office
> gave scallop shells which the pilgrims wore as proof of their arrival at
> Santiago. In his classic book, The Road to Santiago, Walter Starkie says
> that he went to the Confraternity of St James office in Santiago and
> collected his scallop shell (no mention of the Compostela).
> Around the late 1700's, when paper became more readily available in Spain,
> the cathedral authorities would issue
> 'la* autentica*'.
> A CSJ article on the Compostela says:
> "Confession and communion remained essential to the granting of the
> certificate of having completed the pilgrimage. Originally hand-written and
> sealed, with slips of paper attesting confession and communion pasted on, it
> became in the C17th (printing reached Galicia very late) a printed document
> which included the confirmation of confession and ommunion." You can read
> more here:
> (http://www.csj.org.uk/compostela.htm)
> Perhaps the author has read Starkie's book? Even so, I think he should have
> done some more up-to-date research before publishing a book with incorrect
> and misleading advice.
>
>
> On 06/12/2007, Ana Young <ayoung2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Like Jim, I too have heard many times about the
> > ancient custom of finishing the Camino by being given
> > or awarded the shell, not as something done now.
> >
> > I didn't fully understand the reason this custom was
> > reversed for modern pilgrims, but it most definitely
> > has been. Our rewards are internal (for a million
> > reasons) and external (the Compostela, the
> > Fisterrana).
> >
> > So I decided, on my second sojourn, to do both: Before
> > setting off from Somport, I bought a "modern-day"
> > shell with the cross to put on my pack. A few stops
> > later I was given two handmade shells as a gift from a
> > lovely Swedish couple with whom I spent my birthday on
> > the feast of San Juan.
> >
> > Sadly, I lost one of them but I still have the other,
> > which was around my neck from that time until I
> > arrived in Fisterra as hospitalera. Then, there on the
> > beach, I found what had to be the most
> > perfectly-shaped scallop shell to both finish off that
> > sojourn as both pilgrim and volunteer ... and to begin
> > the next one. That shell will be around my neck when I
> > walk again.
> >
> > So I do three shell traditions: one from the ancient
> > past, one modern and one of my own. It's as profoundly
> > personal as Jim says, and it feels awesome.
> >
> > Ana
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________________
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> >
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Sil
> _______________________________________________
> Gocamino mailing listGocamino at oakapple.nethttp://mailman.oakapple.net/mailman/listinfo/gocamino
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-- 
Sil

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