2011 - Day 17 - Sea and smoke - Part 2 Smoke

After a little bit of re-packing we headed off into town, our first stop the Cathedral to see if the botafumeiro was in place or not, it was! And there was a Mass about to start. We decided to stay even though the Mass was going to be in Galician rather that Castilian Spanish, and we had no hope of understanding any of it, but the draw of the Botafumeiro is so strong. Having been to and even taken a number of high Masses myself in the past, I began to doubt. At a high mass you would cense the Altar, People and Gospel quite early in the service and none of this happened. The Botafumeiro just hung there looking large and silver, without a single wisp of smoke coming from it. After the preacher had been going on for about 10 or 12 minutes, I said to Lesley “its not going to happen, lets go and get something to eat” as we couldn’t really engage with the service, and so we left the Cathedral.

As we were walking along one of the little back streets, we bumped into the Austrian man from Norway and got talking about our trip to A Corunna, and the Botafumeiro, and how we had left as I got bored with the sermon going on to long, he joked that it was a lesson for me with my sermons and then told us that he thought it was swung at the end of the service and not in the way a usual thurible is used, he added if you go back now you might just see it. (Lesley is convinced he was sent to us and I must admit I think she is right).

We headed back to the Cathedral as the Mass was beginning to draw to an end. I spied a group of men dressed in dark crimson robes, I pointed them out to Lesley and said “let’s follow them” so we did, but they did not seem in any particular hurry so a big part of us still didn’t believe that it would be swung.


The end of the service came and just before the blessing, the priest announced the Botafumeiro, I think he also said that a large group of American Pilgrims from California had paid for it to be swung, certainly it was their priest who added the incense.

The men suddenly swung into action, untying the retaining ropes from the wall, and lowering the Botafumeiro to the ground, a man took of the top and another put in a plate of burning coals, the incense was added and it was hauled up into place. Then the man gave it the smallest of swings, and through the action of the men on the main rope (about eight in total) it arc got bigger and bigger across the Cathedral from North to South, nearly hitting the transept roofs.

Inside with all the fresh air the coals burst into flames and through the slits in it as well as smoke coming out we could see flames, it was quite breathtaking to watch and I was pleased I wasn’t under it. The health and safety brigade in this country would have a fit, and it certainly wouldn’t ever be allowed in the UK. Eventually the men let it slow down, and with a little spin on the spot the man who started it going made it stop. It was followed by a round of applause, the priest thanked everyone for their applause for St James and gave the blessing.

After the priests had left, the top came off the coals were removed and it was hoisted back into position about 10 – 15 foot above the floor.
The spectacle over (And that is all you can really describe it as is a spectacle, in truth it was probably good that the Botafumeiro wasn’t there when we had our pilgrims Mass and we would have been concentrating on it rather than the Mass itself); we went off in search of food. We decided to go to a restaurant recommended by our Pension, and it proved to be a good choice, after our starters; salad for Lesley and grilled peppers for me, we both had kebabs, followed by Santiago tart, a lovely rich almond tart. This was washed down with a nice bottle of house wine. Technically I was eating off the menu rather than the meal of the day which Lesley had, and we wondered if we would be charged a lot more for my meal. We had told the restaurant owner how our hotel had recommended his restaurant and I don’t know if it was this or just that he was a nice man, but when the bill came he only charged us for two meals of the day!

Full up, we then headed off to listen to the Tuna group again, who we had seen two nights before,


Yet again they were very entertaining and among their songs they sung a song "Cielito Lindo" with the chorus
Ay, ay, ay, ay,
canta y no Hores...
which I remember singing in Spanish classes at Jack Hunt School in Peterborough, when I was 11 or 12 back in the 1970's. I was so taken with nostalgia that I brought a copy of their CD. As we sat and listened we spied Christina from America and her husband. Christina had been on the Camino for three weeks while her husband joined her for the last week. We had last seen Christina in Sarria as she waited for her husband and had a rest day so it was good to see that she had got to Santiago.

We then headed off to a bar we had visited before for a glass of wine before heading back to the pension and bed.