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All photos on this website by Jack Cox - Travel & Nature Photographer - Assignments welcome

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Let's Discover Asturias in northern Spain

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The Principality of Asturias is one of Spain's autonomous communities. It lies on the north coast of the Iberian Peninsular. This province is a natural paradise, comprising of Atlantic as well as Mediterranean ecosystems. Expect to see deciduous oak and beech forests and the fauna associated with them.

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Your first experience of Asturias may well be via the Puerto de Pajares mountain pass from the plains of Castile. If so you will find the contract quite breathtaking. You are entering a region of high mountains cut by numerous narrow river valleys, 

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This is arguably the most Celtic of all southern European Celtic lands. Celtic culture exudes from every pore. Bagpipes and drums are played at every opportunity. Celtic symbolism such as knots and triskeles (triskelion) form the basis of their art. It is easy to understand how Scotland retained its bagpipes. Wales retains her knots and triskeles despite Romans, Saxons and Normans. 

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If you examine the religion practiced here today (and in most of Spain) you see that the Christian veneer is very thin. The centre of veneration is The Mother of the Son, known in pre-christian, Celtic times as Modron mother of Mabon. Interestingly Mabon is also reborn every winter solstice (Christmas). This is not a criticism, just the opposite in fact. Its good to see the old ideas being kept alive, even is in new clothes.

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If you look at British traditional folklore you find characters such as Arthur. There may well have been a single historical Arthur who fought again the Saxons and went in search of a holy grail or cauldron. Then again when you look at The Mabinogion you find many, much older, themes which have been woven into the Arthurian story, 

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Here in Asturias we have characters such as Don Pelayo, an eighth century warrior who fought against the Moors at roughly the same time that Arthur was fighting the Saxons. There are thinly veiled Celtic Pagan themes in the Pelayo story. For instance there is a story that before the battle of Covadonga in 722 he received the "breath of the virgin". This seems very much like a Pagan Celtic king or leader receiving sovereignty from the Goddess before he was able to conquer or rule. The only difference is that in  modern renditions of the Pelayo story, the word 'Goddess' has been replaced with the word 'Virgin'. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's highly christianised version of the Arthurian story see Arthur receiving sovereignty from the lady of the Lake. 

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So what if Pelayo really did have an understanding of and respect for the old Pagan Celtic ways? What if, like Arthur, he was in the process of incorporating the best of the new ideas into his traditional worship and practice. What if the first Europeans to push south against the Moors really did carry the old traditions with them. What if that knowledge and understanding has been diluted and corrupted due to the hysteria of later centuries? That would certainly explain how so much Celtic culture survives here. Of course its fun to speculate about these things, and we can only speculate.

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