Myth, Legend and the Holy Ghost
Galicia — where Paganism and Christianity merge.
All of Spain boasts its fair share of myths and legends but the north of the country seems to have taken it to a whole new level, probably due to its isolating thick forests and impassable mountains that prevented invading cultures from fully permeating the interior regions of Galicia, Asturias and the Basque Country. North-western Iberia before the Roman invasion in the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE was populated by Celtic tribes that shared a similar culture and worshipped similar gods to other Celtic tribes in Gaul, Brittany, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. But Galicia’s pagan spirit can be traced back further, to 4500 BC — a megalithic age that saw the creation of large stone structures such as dolmens which already suggests a tendency to venerate the dead with cult-like observances. Since then there has been a continual oral tradition of religious beliefs and practices that run the gamut from goblins, witches, giants, snake dragons, wandering souls, elves, demons, mermaids, ogres to other miraculous creatures woven into endless elaborate rites and rituals.
