I told her, "Keep carefully under lock and key everything I have entrusted to you. God willing, I'll be back by St. John's Day [3] or July."
Well supplied with the necessary items, I took off down the road, caring little for my past troubles, taking comfort in the present. It was quite pleasant to feel myself free at last. I had escaped from the corral where the butcher-woman first goaded and then flayed me [4].
By mid day I had passed Bunyol and by sunset I arrived in Requena [5]. A grand beginning! I happened on a great festival- -didn't know about it in advance, just stumbled on it--but a rather disgraceful one. A bride-to-be (already deflowered before the wedding), all dolled up, decked out in pearls, and eager for the groom to hand over his earnest money [6], figured out how to dupe everyone by pretending to be possessed by an appalling demon.
Twisting her face, she picks up a stick and yells at everyone to come and get her. People gather round, amazed. With her feet and hands tied, they take her in front of the church. And there she goes through her crazy act with the groom himself.
The good curate tries to make the sign of the cross over her and sprinkle on some holy water. The accursed woman comes at him, striking devilish poses. She says she doesn't believe in that stuff. The curate makes the sign of the cross and conjures her. She curses again and blasphemes against God.
The priest conjures the devil again with all his concentration and presses him still more fiercely, saying, "Depart at once through any available place and harm her not."
At last the clever wench, changes her voice and cries, "I shall not leave her without opening up or ripping and widening that hole she guards deep within her body."
The groom cried out loud, "Whatever he wants, through wherever he wants, let him withdraw as quick as possible. Let him break and tear. Just so he doesn't torment her any longer. Don't use force on him any more or try to conjure him. Beg him nicely to come out. Just so she lives. I don't care about anything else."
Shouting "Jesus" and pretending to have been delivered of her demon, she seemed half-dead. As if in a swoon and unaware of what had happened to her, she cried, "Surely a great fire has left me through that nether place and it is all inflamed. It must be Saint Anthony's fire [7]."
A simple decoction of plantain leaves [8], I should think, was enough to cure her. Thus she hid her defect. Everyone was happy and the groom most of all.
The next Wednesday as I was leaving town, I happened on bitter company, just for me, I'm sure [9]. Following milestones, plains, mountains and low places and crossing rivers, I went on to visit the Holy Corpse of La Calzada, a walled city [10]. A foul and despicable innkeeper with whorish inclinations had staying at that time in her inn a band of pilgrims, old and young. One of them caught her fancy and she asked him to give her pleasure; he declined. The vile baggage put a cup in his baggage and when he went on his way she "discovered" it missing. She had him hung for the theft.
The other pilgrims in his group went on to Compostela and fulfilled their vow. On the way back, they went by just to see him hanging there, a little ways off the great road. He was alive!
He said, "Get me down from here! The Blessed Saint James has held me up."
The dastardly plot was exposed and was given further confirmation, for the pilgrims ran and put their case before the presiding judge. As he was responding to their complaint, right before their eyes, two cooked birds miraculously came back to life and began to crow loudly, both the hen and the cock [11]. The condemned innkeeper was hanged without further ado.
I went on down the road, sometimes pensive, sometimes laughing, and arrived in the west [12]. There I performed my vigil and fulfilled my pilgrim vow.
On my way back, I witnessed quite a fight in a small town. In the middle of the street I saw a husband haul his wife into court and vigorously accuse her of adultery. She denied it. They forced her to take hold of a red hot iron. It set her hand on fire and burnt it completely [13]. The judges wasted no time then with listening to her testimony. They voted on the spot and when the sentence was passed, her husband slit her throat.
2. Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in the extreme northwestern corner of Spain was a popular goal for religious pilgrims from all over Europe. Santiago (Saint James the Apostle) was the patron saint of Christian Spaniards. He was also, it seems, a saint of Roig's personal devotion, no doubt because they shared the same name (Jaume=James). This may be one of the reasons Roig sends his protagonist on a pilgrimage to Santiago.
3. June 24, a popular holiday, in part, because of its proximity to Midsummer's Day.
4. [A reference to the protagonist's first wife who, he feels, has attempted to skin him alive. Some previous editors have seen in these lines a reference to the bullfight, but the reference to the protagonist's former wife as a "carnissera" (butcher-woman) suggests to me rather, the image of stockyards in which dumb beasts are being readied for slaughter.]
5. Bunyol is a village some 40 km. from Valencia, Requena a larger town some 65 km. distant from Valencia.
6. The setting for this scene is "lo jorn d'arrar," the day on which the groom deposits some of his property with the bride in security that the wedding will take place. Implicit here, perhaps, is the idea that the betrothed woman will have to demonstrate her own fitness for marriage at this time.
7. St. Anthony's fire is a popular name for erysipelas. According to Webster's this is "an acute febrile disease accom- panied with a diffused inflammation of the skin and mucous membranes." It is a bacterial infection.
8. Plantago spp. Roig may be prescribing the plant here because of its astringent properties.
9. Roig does not describe this company and some editors have suggested that, since the protagonist is travelling by himself, he is referring to himself.
10. The nucleus of this tale appears in numerous versions, though this is the only version, so far as I know, in which the innkeeper is explicitly a woman. An important early version is found in the Codex Calixtinus, a mid twelfth-century compilation of materials relating to Saint James complete with a pilgrim guidebook. In a sermon in Bk. I, a preacher warns pilgrims about the scams practiced on innocent pilgrims by "evil innkeepers" and tells a version of this tale. From there, the story passes into the Golden Legend, an extremely popular collection of saints' lives by Jacob of Voragine, and is found among the miracles of St. James.
11. The miracle of the resurrected cock and hen seems to be a fifteenth-century addition to the tale. In commemoration of this event a live cock and hen are kept to this day on display in the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
12. I.e., in Santiago de Compostela, in the westernmost part of Spain.
13. This episode may represent a distant echo of the story of "Tristan and Isolde." In Gottfried von Strassburg's version Isolde is charged to undergo "the ordeal of the red-hot iron" in order to prove her fidelity to her husband, King Mark. She escapes the ordeal through a clever ruse and ardent prayers to Christ.