It is barely twenty miles from a place that was a sacred forest for the ancient Celts, who had dedicated it to one of its main deities, Lug and where the Romans built a city and a palisade that, on a smaller scale, of course, but comparatively speaking, it exercised similar functions to those of the famous wall of Hadrian in the also hazy Britannia, to keep the conquered peoples at bay: Lugo. Nor is it within the boundaries of the Old Way or French Way, as it passes through the province, but the insignificant distance that separates it from it, just three kilometers, is less effort than many pilgrims, possibly attracted by the more persistent claims now, they risk facing such a tiny detour, possibly knowing that they will see something truly special, that will not leave them in any way indifferent and that, in fact, will be another of the many experiences of the Camino, worthy of telling and remembering : the Ninfeo of Santa Eulalia de Bóveda.
In Bóveda, as in many other places of this old bull skin that is Spain, the arrival of Christianity was a very unconventional break with the ancient cults, which had to be eliminated by decree, even if that meant reducing its main debris sanctuaries For some strange reason, not yet unveiled by historians and archaeologists, such destruction was not carried out with this formidable sanctuary of Roman origin. At least, not in the conventional way, but buried and a church was built on top. A church that, in fact, reminds nothing of the original temple and hardly offers any interest, at least externally speaking.
This fact - probably motivated by the persistence with which people, especially the sick, came to the place - brought, at least, the happy coincidence that the monument was preserved in an excellent state. Happiness that, of course, lasted very little, because when it was discovered, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the folly, coupled with the laziness and lack of skill of some workers who were not at all aware of the intrinsic value of what they were so clumsily managing, he made the world, and also history, lose most of a unique monument that, as we have said, and by those curious paradoxes of fate, had escaped the terrible fury of the first missionaries.
As a consequence of these terrible paradoxes and ridicule of the destination, of the Ninfeo de Bóveda, there is no longer that sumptuousness of its two floors, nor the luster of the expensive marble blocks that covered the lower part of its walls, highlighting the marvelous paintings. Some paintings, which represent, in their elements, a symbolic conjunction between two antagonistic worlds such as the Earth and the Sky, between which slips, caught in that invisible angelic ladder, the Spirit of man. A spirit, who came to the Sanctuary of Bóveda, attracted by its salutary qualities, as is still the case, in some engravings that, still barely survive, survive the deadly attack of time.
Engravings - similar to many others that are still located in different places, like fragments discarded from an immense monumental puzzle - that show the ritual dances in honor of the deities; to lame or invalid characters who came to the sanctuary in search of a lost or deteriorated health, or to that figure of a pregnant priestess, celebrating the offices next to the homonymous figure of a priest, and for more mystery, since in Camino de Santiago or rather, very close to this one we are, the unmistakable figure of a whole vital symbol: the goose.
It is not a matter of spreading, because the subject would give to write authentic essays, but to give a heartfelt homage to a place that deserves, of course, a special attention and that, even after all the losses, could offer us a more open vision and exceptional of our rich and exuberant past.
NOTICE: originally, published on my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM. Both the text and the photographs are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry can be viewed at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/un-lugar-magico-la-vera-del-camino.html