Category Archives: Folklore

St. James the Moor-slayer

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Statue of Saint James the Moor-slayer or Santiago Matamoros in the Cathedral of Burgos, Castille, Spain

Tradition has it that the Apostle Saint James preached in Spain. He then returned to Jerusalem, where Herod executed him. The corpse was then placed in a ship that arrived at Spain. The tomb was forgotten until the year AD 813, when a hermit noted lights and songs around the place. The hermit told the local bishop who–after removing some weeds–discovered the remains of the apostle identified by the inscription on the tombstone. He reported the discovery to King Alfonso II, who came to the scene and proclaimed the Apostle Sant Iago (Saint James) patron of the kingdom. The area was then renamed as Campus Stellae, the “Field of Stars,” from which the current name, Compostela, has been derived.

During the Battle of Clavijo, it is said that Saint James the Great miraculously appeared to provide assistance to an outnumbered Spanish Christian army, helping them gain victory against the Moors who had started their conquest of Spain in AD 711. The battle is placed between AD 834 and 844, about 800 years after the death of James. According to legend, Saint James appeared as a warrior on a white horse amidst the Spanish army, wielding a white banner. Upon seeing him, the Christian army cried out “¡Dios ayuda a Santiago!” which translates to “God save St. James!” It is believed that more than 5,000 Moors were killed during the battle, earning James the title Matamoros or “Moor-slayer”.

Many historians argue that the Battle of Clavijo never took place and that it was a myth based on the historical Battle of Monte Laturce (AD 859). The legend only appeared in writing nearly 300 years after its alleged occurrence. However, while it was based on legend, the story of the battle helped establish Spain’s national identity.

See an article from The Guardian about St. James the Moor-slayer here.

Flying Carpets

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Riding a Flying Carpet, an 1880 painting by Viktor Vasnetsov

Flying carpets seem to be the single most famous object in the Abrian Nights stories. well, flying carpets and magic lamps. But everyone knows flying carpets fill the stories of the Arabian Nights.

Or do they? I just read a fascinating essay by Ruth B. Bottigheimer in the most recent issue of Gramarye, the journal of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales, and Fantasy. Bottigheimer points out that only a few of the Arabian Nights tales include flying carpets and those tales are all late additions to the collection. A flying carpet first appears in the tale Prince Ahmed and Pari Banou which was written by Hanna Dyab, a Syrian Christian who travelled to Paris and wrote his story after reading French fairy tales. His story follows a basic European fairy tale plotline which is different from the usual plots of the Arabian Nights tales.

The tale of Prince Ahmed and Pari Banou is based on a French story by Madame d’Aulnoy called White Cat. The French story has a beautiful carpet that does not fly and so a beautiful carpet appears in Pari Banou as well. But there is a wooden horse that can fly in the White Cat story and so the beautiful carpet in Pari Banou DOES fly. Before Hanna Dyab retold White Cat, the only Arabic mention of “magical carpets” were actually wooden platforms in the Koran which says that King Solomon was able to control the wind and travel great distances in a single day, with a large wooden platform travelling with him to carry all his servants, possessions, and soldiers.

Jewish stories from the Middle Ages also say that King Solomon was given the power to control the winds by God. In the Jewish stories, Solomon rides a green carpet with all his servants. But these Jewish stories were apparently unknown to Arabic storytellers. It seems that one of the most apparently Arabic magic objects–flying carpets–actually came from a Syrian Christian who retold a French fairy tale to the man collecting the Arabian Nights stories.

Executions

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Ancient lithography representing the elements of devotional practices towards the holy souls of the executed in Sicily.

June 29, 1972 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that capital punishment was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” The decision spared the lives of 600 individuals then sitting on death row. Four years later, in another ruling, the Court reversed itself and determined the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment. On October 4, 1976, the ban was lifted on the death penalty in cases involving murder.

Executions and the corpses of the executed have always fascinated people. Stories about the corpses fill books of folklore, legends and mythology. A hanged man’s hand was used to cure warts and skin tumors in England. All sorts of body parts were used in magic and medicine and these were taken from the corpses of the executed either by the executioner or by people who came to unearth and exhume the bodies of the executed in graveyards.

Prayers, folklore and customs from Southern Italy testify that even the souls of criminals had their part in the devotional practices of the population. Invoking the holy souls of the executed who dwelled for a long time in Purgatory, people established a compassionate connection between the actual and the heavenly world. The Catholic and political context of places like 19th-century Sicily, where the bandit might be seen as a popular hero who opposed the Bourbon oppressor, strongly connotes the concept of “holy soul”.