Director's Notes - Galician / Spanish Revels

Thousands of years ago - nobody is quite sure when - some of the Celtic tribes of Northern Europe made their way westward to the Iberian Peninsula.  Passing between the Cordillera Cantabrica and what we now call the Bay of Biscay, they pushed on toward the Western Ocean.  When they had reached the last bit of the European continent, they dubbed the promontory Cabo Fisterra, Land’s End, and the region they settled became known as Galicia.

By the late Middle ages, thousands of pilgrims were tracing this same route, this time in a devotional quest for the fabled city of Santiago de Compostela – the purported resting place of St. James. Over centuries Galicia became a venue where the cultures of Renaissance Europe met and sometimes collided with the Moorish and Sephardic traditions of Castillian Spain.  But always, the Galician people clung to their Celtic heritage.

In the music and rituals of this year’s Revels, you may hear sounds that evoke other lands.  You may detect unmistakable hints of the Irish or Breton cultures in the lilt of the Galician pipes. The street puppet tradition, and the Danza De Espadas, or sword dance may remind you of the folk theatre traditions of the British Isles. We have even imagined a festival where music and stories of Catalonia and Andalusia are included alongside the devotional Cantigas of the Spanish King Alphonso.

The City of Compostela de Santiago serves us Revelers much the way it served those pilgrims of bygone centuries.  It is a gathering place where many cultures come together, each with its own special character, but all joined in the celebration of the human spirit. Like pilgrims, we come together here, our hopes and dreams in hand, to raise our voices and lift our hearts in the spirit of the season.  Welcome Yule!